Charles Mingus: Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me

The threat of nuclear annihilation hung over the Space Age like a millennial migraine the morning after 100 consecutive New Year's Eves. ICBMs and B-52s vied for the honor of carrying death and destruction to our enemies in megaton yields. Armageddon loomed a button-push away. Into this doomsday scenario charged jazz's most intrepid activist. Having ridiculed the all-American heel segregationist Gov. Faubus, Mingus now took on nuclear brinkmen Kennedy and Khrushchev. No ducking and covering for Mingus. His slow, moaning blues exhorts, "Don't let 'em drop it. Stop it. Bebop it!" We're still here, so it must've worked.