The band that defined American music, according to Charlie Watts: “That to me is America”
Charlie Watts regarded jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus as the sound that best represented America, recalling that he went to see Mingus’s 13-piece orchestra at Birdland during the Rolling Stones’ first US tour. His view reflects how jazz, alongside blues and country, shaped the band’s musical imagination and Watts’s own restrained, responsive drumming.
Mingus’s music combined improvisation with control, treating musical lines as part of a conversation between players. The article connects that approach to the Stones’ later work, including the country influence in “Dead Flowers”, the blues of “Midnight Rambler” and the jazz-tinged passage in “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”; it also quotes Keith Richards on the camaraderie of playing together.
In short
- Charlie Watts called Charles Mingus’s music the sound of America.
- He saw Mingus’s 13-piece orchestra at Birdland.
- Jazz helped shape Watts’s restrained approach and the Stones’ music.
Explained simply
Charles Mingus was an American jazz bassist and composer whose music brought together improvisation and carefully arranged passages. His large ensembles relied on musicians listening and responding to one another, balancing individual freedom with a shared structure.
Charlie Watts was the Rolling Stones’ drummer, while Keith Richards was one of the band’s guitarists and songwriters. The Stones drew on several American musical traditions, including jazz, blues and country, as they developed their sound.
Mingus’s work helps explain the musical influences behind the band and the way its members played together. Jazz’s emphasis on exchange between musicians also offers context for Watts’s restrained drumming and Richards’s comments about the band’s camaraderie.