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ブルー・ミッチェル
ブルー・ミッチェル（Blue Mitchell）ことリチャード・アレン・ミッチェル（Richard Allen Mitchell, 1930年3月13日-1979年5月21日）は、伸びのあるクリアーな音色でハード・バップ期には人気を集めた。バンドリーダーやサイドマンとして、リバーサイドやブルー・ノート、メインストリームといったレーベルに多くの録音を遺した。フロリダ州マイアミの出身。ハイスクールでトランペットを始める。「ブルー」というあだ名も当時に遡る。マイアミに戻ってからキャノンボール・アダレーに見出され、1958年にアダレーと共演してニューヨークのリバーサイド・レコードへの録音に参加した。その後はジュニア・クックやジーン・テイラー（ダブルベース）、ロイ・ブルックス（ドラム）とともに、ホレス・シルヴァー・クィンテットに入団する。1964年にピアニストに新人チック・コリアを、また当時病気中のブルックスに代わってドラマーに若手のアル・フォスターを迎え、クックやテイラーを引き連れて自らのクィンテットを結成してブルーノート・レコードに多数の録音を行なったが、1969年に解散した。その後は1971年までレイ・チャールズの演奏旅行に同行した。1970年代半ばからは、ソウルミュージック、ロック、ファンクといったジャンルでセッションマンとして録音や演奏に携わり、ルイ・ベルソンやビル・ホルマン、ビル・ベリーのビッグ・バンドや、トニー・ベネットやレナ・ホーンらのソリストと共演した。
- Lou Donaldson / Quartet/Quintet/Sextet (1952)
- Big 6 (1958)
- Dinah Washington / The Jazz Sides (Omnibas) (1954-8)
- Portrait of Cannonball (1958)
- Out of the Blue (1959/1/5)
- Horace Silver / Finger poppin' (1959/2/1)
- Horace Silver / Blowin' the Blues Away (1959/8/8)
- Blue Soul (1959/9/28)
- Blue's Moods (1960)
- Step Lightly (1963)
- The Thing to Do (1964)
- Boss Horn (1966)
- Blues' Blues (1972)
- The Louis Bellson Explosion (1975)
Big 6 (1958)
- Blues March
- Big Six
- There Will Never Be Another You
- Brother 'Ball
- Jamph
- Sir John
- Promenade
Dinah Washington / The Jazz Sides (Omnibas) (1954-8)
- I could write a book
- Make the man love me
- Blue gardenia
- You don't know what love is
- My old flame*
- Easy livin'
- I get a kick out of you
- This can't be love
- If I had you
- I let a song go out of my heart
- A foggy day
- Bye Bye Blues
- Blue skies
- Lover come back to me
- Crazy love
- Backwater blues
- All of me*
Portrait of Cannonball (1958)
- Minority
- *Minority (takes 2-3)
- Straight Life
- Blue Funk
- A Little Taste
- People Will Say We're in Love
- Nardis (take 5)
- Nardis (take 5, 4*)
*plus CD bonus tracks
Out of the Blue (1959/1/5)
- Blues on My Mind (Benny Golson) 9:05
- It Could Happen to You (J.Burke, J.V.Heusen) 5:52
- Boomerang (Clark Terry) 5:01
- Sweet-Cakes 6:09
- Missing You (Ronnell Bright) 5:40
- When the Saints Go Marching In (Traditional) 7:00
- Studio B (Paul Chambers) 7:18*
*Bonus track on CD reissue
Blue Soul (1959)
- Minor Vamp (Benny Golson) 3:40
- The Head (Blue Mitchell) 4:26
- The Way You Look Tonight (Fields-Kern) 3:20
- Park Avenue Petite (Benny Golson) 3:55
- Top Shelf (Jimmy Heath) 4:04
- Waverley Street (Jimmy Heath) 4:57
- Blue Soul (Blue Mitchell) 4:09
- Polka Dots and Moonbeams (Burke-Van Heusen) 5:47
- Nica's Dream (Horace Silver) 6:33
Blue's Moods (1960)
- I'll Close My Eyes
- Avars
- Scrapple From the Apple
- Kinda Vague
- Sir John
- When I Fall in Love
- Sweet Pumpkin
- I Wish I Knew
Step Lightly (1963)
テナーが竹内直ならば、ラッパはミッチェルが良い。一連のブルーノートへの吹き込みでは、モーガンの人気が先行しているが唄心溢れるソロはは誰にも負けないと思う。本作品は、ミッチェルのBN第1作と云われる『ザ・シング・トゥ・ドゥ（4178）』よりも、1年前の録音でレコード番号も4142と若い。テスト盤まで出来ていながら未発表に終わっていたが、80年にキングから初めて発表された。それまで17年お蔵入りになっていた原因は、マイケル・カスクーナの解説に詳しい。(2008/11/23 12:51)
- Mamacita
- Sweet and Lovely
- Abdera
- Step Lightly
- Cry Me A River
- Bluesville
Blue Mitchell was an instinctive musician. Generally, he could be considered a disciple of the Clifford Brown school, but he possessed a warmth, off-handed lyricism and a casual, yet deliberate presentation that put him in that rare realm with Kenny Dorham and Miles Davis. Whether he was playing a modern lazz composition, a ballad or a straight blues, he played it convincingfy and intelligently and always soulfully in the truest sense of the word.
Born in Miami, Florida on March 13, 1930, Blue entered the fiffies decade in the r&b big band of saxophonist Paul WIlliams, who was still riding high from his hit "The Hucklebuck". In 1952, Blue freelanced around New York appearing on Lou Donaldson's second session for Blue Note; the pianist on the date was Horace Silver. For the next three years, he would hold a chair in the band of Earl Bostic, another lazz-rooted r&b saxophonist. After a bit of freelance touring with Red Prysock and others, he returned to his native Miami.
Fellow Floridian and old friend Cannonball Adderley used Blue on the altoist's first date for Riverside Records in July of 1958. A few days later, Blue made the first of seven albums for that label under his own name. He also appeared on sessions led by Philly Joe Jones, Johnny Griffin and Junior Cook on Rlverside.
Blue's career took its great leap in the autumn of 58 when he joined the Horace Silver Quintet with Junior Cook, Gene Taylor and Louis Hayes, who would be later replaced by Roy Brooks. That band remained together until March of 1964.
During time away from the Silver group, Blue would not only record as a leader and sideman for Riverside, but make several significant appearances on Blue Note dates by Jimmy Smith, Jackie McLean and Lou Donaldson among others. The album at hand, his first as a leader for the label, is previously unissued, although it was assigned the catalog number 84142 and even listed in some catalogs. Listening to this session in an effort to seek out the exact personnel, Joe Henderson suggested that perhaps it was Alfred Lion's perfectionist tendencies that held the record back since Leo Wright is a fraction away from the proper tuning on several numbers. But that would be hair splitting, even within the high standards of Blue Note.
More than Iikely, the fact that the Horace Silver band broke up just seven months affer the recording of this date and that Blue quickly organized a working band with Cook, Chick Corea, Gene Taylor and Al Foster and recorded it for the label made this session immediately obsolete for the moment.
Of that band, his longest running, Horace told me recently, "That was a well rounded band; they could play funky, hip, ballads, blues, the Latin thing, all of it... the band had a natural, commerciality about it. It wasn't contrived. There was something about those cats that when they played funk or blues, they really played it because it was from their hearts and souls. They weren't doing it to please the audience. They enjoyed it, and it came across that way. TheY were very open, overt personalities and they projected. They played all." Those qualities were certainly retained in the aforementioned Mitchell band that grew out of that group.
Blue Mitchell was a very good writer, but not a prolific one, so it is not surprising that the material on this date comes from other sources. Joe Henderson composed "Mamacita" and "Step Lightlv" and arranged the two standards "Cry Me A River" and "Sweet And Lovely". "Soulville" is by alto saxophonist Sonny Red, who had recorded it a few years prior on his own Blue Note; Roy Brooks was the drummer on that version as well.
"Andrea" is by Dallas guitarist Roger Boykin. Blue first recorded it under its original title, "Little Stupid" on a Junior Cook date for Riverside, but that version was never released. Little Stupid was incidentally Blue's affectionate nickname for Boykin.
Joe Henderson at this point had just signed with Blue Note months before. He and Kenny Dorham would record five albums, three under Joe's name and two under KD's, between April, 1963 and September, 1964. It was on the Iast of these, Dorham's *Tlompetta Toccata*, that "Mamacita" would first reach the public. Joe did not record the tune under his own leadership until several years later. He has yet to record, "Step Lightly". But Mitchell repeated the tune a year later with his working band on his first issued Blue Note album *The Thing To Do*. "Blue told me that that tune was very popular for him through the years. He recorded it a few times, the last was on a Louis Bellson date," Joe said recently.
And it is probably on this take that Joe refers to Leo Wright's slight sharpness in relation to the rest of the musicians. Wright has a curious sound and a curious approach here, almost the missing link between Sahib Shihab and Anthony Braxton in tone.
Wright is a vibrant Texas alto saxophonist and flutist who first came to prominence during his tenure with Dizzy Gillespie's quintet from 1959 to 1962. During '62 and '63, he freelanced and recorded as a leader for Atlantic. Just prior to this session, he and Henderson made up the front line for trumpeter Johnny Coles' Blue Note album. Soon after this period, he moved to Europe, ultimately setting in Berlin where he has been active in the radio orchestra and the studios as well as jazz circles.
Herbie Hancock, brought to the attention of Blue Note by his greatest booster Donald Byrd, had already been signed to the label as an artist and was beginning to pop up frequently on a variety of sessions. In May of 1963, he joined Miles Davis. His strong lyricism and natural funk compliment Blue's approach perfectly.
Taylor and Brooks were, of course, Blue's bandmates in the Horace Silver Quintet. After the split, Taylor would remain with Blue's own group for a few years before joining folksinger Judy Collins. Brooks has been an active freelancer since this time, often organizing his own ensembles for tours and recordings.
The essence of Blue Mitchell is represented here, most notably in his soulful, direct solo0 on the easy, loping and vaguely bluesy "Step Lightjy" and on his warm, iyrical and unsentimental work on "Cry Me A River".
With his quintet, he recorded three fine albums for Blue Note, followed by two more excellent albums with the group expanded into a tentet. In 1969, he made his final album for the label, a blatantly commercial effort *Collision In Black*, which missed the mark. By then, he was living in Los Angeles, procuring some studio gigs and working in less jazz-oriented contexts. In the early seventies, he worked with Ray Charles, John Mayall and Ben Sidran among others. He continued to record as a leader, first for Mainstream, then RCA, then Impulse. The bulk of that material was designed for a more Commercial audience.
But in the last two vears of his life, he teamed up with Harold Land to co-lead an excellent quintet that has been preserved on one album. In the last year and a half of his life, the trumpeter's activities had to be curtailed because of the pain and treatment required for bone cancer. I was involved with a benefit for Blue in June of 1979 when a call came from Horace Silver on a Monday night. And suddenly, the benefit became a trlbute.
一Michael Cuscuna
The Thing to Do (1964)
- Fungii Mama (Mitchell) 7:49
- Mona's Mood (Heath) 5:18
- The Thing to Do (Heath) 7:08
- Step Lightly (Henderson) 10:27
- Chick's Tune (Corea) 9:36
Boss Horn (1966)
- Millie (Pearson) 6:18
- O Mama Enit (Mitchell) 5:34
- I Should Care (S.Cahn, A.Stordahl, P.Weston) 7:31
- Rigor Mortez (Dave Burns) 6:21
- Tones for Joan's Bones (Chick Corea) 6:37
- Straight Up and Down (Corea) 6:36
Blues' Blues (1972)
- Casa Blues (John Guerin) 8:25
- Just Made Up (Joe Sample) 7:32
- Blues' Blues (Blue Mitchell) 7:05
- Granite & Concrete (Hadley Caliman) 9:51
- I Didn't Ask To Be (George Bohanon) 10:09
- Valerie (Blue Mitchell) 12:26*
- Alone Again Naturally (G.O'Sullivan) 3:24*
*Bonus track on CD reissue
The Louis Bellson Explosion (1975)
- Intimacy of the blues
- Quiet Riots
- Carnaby street
- Beyond Category
- Chameleon
- Open your Window
- Movin' on
- Groove Blues
- La banda grande