to have the self-esteem necessary to gain a stronger sense of self in terms of career and society, to try to be a pimp, and to seek to escape from the cycle he knows is detrimental to blacks in general but that seems to difficult to overcome. Where Mingus excels is in his music, and as his career develops, he has much to say about the development of jazz, the music industry in the U.S. and elsewhere, and especially about the prejudice and discrimination marking that industry. On the one hand, the industry benefited greatly from the development of jazz, while on the other the industry did not treat the black musicians who developed the form fairly. The importance of this to his life is evident early in the book as he describes the reality he faced to his psychiatrist, noting that others do not want him to be a success and are
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