Eric Mingus

Eric Mingus is a vocalist, composer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist whose career defies categorization. With a voice that can move from thunder to lullaby, and a creative lineage rooted in the legacy of Black American music, Mingus works at the intersection of jazz, blues, punk, poetry, and performance art. He has collaborated with artists including Howard Johnson, Elliott Sharp, Hubert Sumlin and Levon Helm, while developing his own multidisciplinary works such as The Mill—an ongoing project that explores ancestral memory, survival, and storytelling in the Great Smoky Mountains. In October 2025, the title track of this project, ‘The Mill (Grinds My Bones) was released as a duo with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Eric leads the Sacred Routes Vocal Ensemble, using words and melody to trace the roots of our human connection. In addition to private coaching of musicians, Eric teaches at The New School, has lectured at Berklee, Harvard, UC Irvine, the Banlieues Blues Jazz festival (Paris, France) and the In Situ Arts Society (Bonn, Germany). He taught vocal improvisation classes and a Charles Mingus workshop at London’s Community Music House.