Blue Mitchell

Blue Mitchell

Richard Allen (Blue) Mitchell (March 13, 1930 – May 21, 1979) was an American jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock, and funk trumpeter, known for many albums recorded as leader and sideman for Riverside, Blue Note and then Mainstream Records.

Biography

Mitchell was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He began playing trumpet in high school where he acquired his nickname, Blue.

After high school he played in the rhythm and blues ensembles of Paul Williams, Earl Bostic, and Chuck Willis. After returning to Miami he was noticed by Cannonball Adderley, with whom he recorded for Riverside Records in New York in 1958. He then joined the Horace Silver Quintet playing with tenor Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor and drummer Roy Brooks. Mitchell stayed with Silver's group until the band's break-up in 1964. After the Silver quintet disbanded, Mitchell formed a group employing members from the Silver quintet substituting the young pianist Chick Corea for Silver and replacing a then sick Brooks with drummer Al Foster. This group produced a number of records for Blue Note disbanding in 1969, after which Mitchell joined and toured with Ray Charles till 1971. From 1971 to 1973 Mitchell performed with John Mayall on Jazz Blues Fusion. From the mid – 70s he recorded, and worked as a session man in the genres noted previously, performed with the big band leaders Louie Bellson, Bill Holman and Bill Berry and was principal soloist for Tony Bennett and Lena Horne. Other band leaders Mitchell recorded with include Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, Philly Joe Jones, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Johnny Griffin, Al Cohn, Dexter Gordon and Jimmy Smith. Blue Mitchell kept his hard-bop playing going with the Harold Land quintet up until his death from cancer on May 21, 1979 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 49.

Discography

As Leader

Year	Title	Label
1958	Big 6	Riverside
1958	Blues on My Mind	Riverside
1959	Out of the Blue	Riverside
1959	Blue Soul	Riverside
1960	Blue's Moods	Riverside
1960	Smooth As the Wind	Riverside
1962	A Sure Thing	Riverside
1962	The Cup Bearers	Riverside
1963	Blue Mitchell	Mainstream
1963	Step Lightly	Blue Note, Released Later
1964	The Thing to Do	Blue Note
1965	Down with It!	Blue Note
1966	Bring It Home to Me	Blue Note
1966	Boss Horn	Blue Note
1967	Heads Up	Blue Note
1968	Collision in Black	Blue Note
1969	Bantu Village	Blue Note
1971	Soul Village	Mainstream
1971	Vital Blue	Mainstream
1972	Blue's Blues	Mainstream
1973	The Last Tango = Blues	Mainstream
1973	Graffiti Blues	Mainstream
1974	Many Shades of Blue	Mainstream
1975	Stratosonic Nuances	RCA
1975	Strato Sonic	RCA
1976	Live	Just Jazz
1976	Funktion Junction	RCA
1976	True Blue	Xanadu
1976	Funktion	RCA
1977	Last Dance	JAM
1977	African Violet	ABC
1977	Mapenzi	Concord Jazz
1977	Summer Soft	Impulse!

As sideman

Year	Leader	Title	Label
1952	Lou Donaldson	New Faces-New Sounds	Blue Note
1959	Horace Silver	Finger Poppin'	Blue Note
1959	Horace Silver	Blowin' the Blues Away	Blue Note
1960	Horace Silver	Horace Scope	Blue Note
1960	Bobby Timmons	Soul Time	Riverside
1961	Junior Cook	Junior's Cookin'	Jazzland
1962	Horace Silver	The Tokyo Blues	Blue Note
1964	Horace Silver	Song For My Father	Blue Note
1967	Lou Donaldson	Mr. Shing-A-Ling	Blue Note
1976	Al Cohn, Dexter Gordon	True Blue	Xanadu Records
1976	Al Cohn, Dexter Gordon	Silver Blue	Xanadu Records
1978	Philly Joe Jones	Drum Song	Galaxy Records

External links

• Blue Mitchell site

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