Blues and Roots

WHEN CHARLES MINGUS WAS BORN IN NOGALES IN 1922, it was not yet a divided city. A narrow fence in downtown and some cattle fencing along other parts marked what is today a militarized international boundary, separating Nogales, Arizona, from Nogales, Sonora. People (mostly locals and whites) could cross back and forth between countries without hassle, unlike today, when a triple-layer of razor wire and a thirty-foot-high fence, along with roving Border Patrol agents, sever Ambos Nogales in two. It’s fitting that one of the twentieth century’s great shapeshifting artists was born here. Though his birthplace has been overlooked by critics (his family moved to Los Angeles when he was a toddler) the spirit of troublemaking and mezcla embodied in the borderlands tints Mingus’s music.