Blue Mitchell

Blue Mitchell possessed a direct, lightly swinging, and unadorned trumpet tone that meshed naturally with the hard bop sensibilities Blue Note cultivated throughout the 1960s. Despite clear ability, he tends to receive less attention today because he never projected a sharply distinctive profile amid his contemporaries. After taking up the trumpet in high school, where he acquired his nickname, Mitchell toured with the R&B groups of Paul Williams, Earl Bostic, and Chuck Willis in the early 1950s, then returned to Miami to focus on jazz. There his playing drew the notice of Cannonball Adderley, resulting in a Riverside session in 1958. That same year he entered the Horace Silver Quintet, remaining until the group dissolved in March 1964 and sharpening his hard bop command in the process. While with Silver he also performed in a parallel unit alongside tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, drummer Roy Brooks, and a succession of pianists, all the while continuing to record as a leader for Riverside. Once Silver disbanded, Mitchell led a successor quintet that replaced Brooks with drummer Al Foster and installed a young Chick Corea at the piano. With further personnel shifts, the ensemble lasted until 1969 and issued a series of Blue Note albums. Sensing fewer openings for straight-ahead jazz, he became a busy pop and soul session musician in the late 1960s, toured with Ray Charles from 1969 to 1971, and then joined blues-rock guitarist John Mayall from 1971 to 1973. After settling in Los Angeles he appeared in big-band settings with Louie Bellson, Bill Holman, and Bill Berry, released several funk and pop/jazz LPs in the late 1970s, served as principal soloist for Tony Bennett and Lena Horne, and preserved his hard bop ties by working with Harold Land in a quintet. He sustained this varied freelance activity until his death from cancer at age 49.