Owner of a direct, lightly swinging, somewhat plain-wrapped tone that fit right in with the Blue Note label's hard bop ethos of the 1960s,
Blue Mitchell tends to be overlooked today perhaps because he never really stood out vividly from the crowd, despite his undeniable talent. After learning the trumpet in high school -- where he got his nickname -- he started touring in the early '50s with the R&B bands of Paul Williams,
Earl Bostic, and
Chuck Willis before returning to Miami and jazz. There, he attracted the attention of
Cannonball Adderley, with whom he recorded for
Riverside in 1958. That year, he joined
the Horace Silver Quintet, with whom he played and recorded until the band's breakup in March 1964, polishing his hard bop skills. During his Silver days,
Mitchell worked with tenor
Junior Cook, bassist
Gene Taylor, drummer
Roy Brooks, and various pianists as a separate unit and continued recording as a leader for
Riverside. When Silver disbanded,
Mitchell's spinoff quintet carried on with
Al Foster replacing
Brooks and a young future star named
Chick Corea in the piano chair. This group, with several personnel changes, continued until 1969, recording a string of albums for Blue Note. Probably aware that opportunities for playing straight-ahead jazz were dwindling,
Mitchell became a prolific pop and soul session man in the late '60s, and he toured with
Ray Charles from 1969 to 1971 and blues/rock guitarist
John Mayall in 1971-1973. Having settled in Los Angeles, he also played big-band dates with
Louie Bellson,
Bill Holman, and Bill Berry; made a number of funk and pop/jazz LPs in the late '70s; served as principal soloist for
Tony Bennett and
Lena Horne; and kept his hand in hard bop by playing with
Harold Land in a quintet. He continued to freelance in this multifaceted fashion until his premature death from cancer at age 49. ~ Richard S. Ginell