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THIS IS BILLY MITCHELL


Joe

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Very nice, 24-bit, mid-price facsimile reissue of the (largely) Detroit-based tenor saxophonist's 1962 session for the Mercury Smash subsidiary. Featuring a young Bobby Hutcherson, Sleepy Anderson, Herman Wright, Candy Finch, Billy Wallace, and Dave Burns, one of my favorite, little-documented trumpet players.

A friend had been kind enough to provide me with a CD-R vinyl transfer of this record, but I have to admit I had not paid much attention to it until I heard the opening track, "J & B", by chance in a record store. I could have sworn I was hearing a Joe Henderson ballad performance. Now I really intrigued by whatever relationship may have existed between Henderson and Mitchell. Then again, maybe I'm just hearing things...

However you hear it, it's a very nice record, not a barn-burner by any means -- lots of slow and mid-tempos -- but it all swings.

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Really looking forward to this. Mitchell impressed me on the Thad Jones small group Mosaic set.

Me too. I was lucky enough to find a vinyl copy of Al Grey's SNAP YOUR FINGERS (which features Billy prominently), so that'll tide me over until I spot a copy of this.

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  • 5 years later...

Spun this again last night, after letting it sit dormant (again) for several years, and it's still a glorious session.

I hear less Joe in Mitchell's work here than before, but he still sounds like the missing link between Henderson (phrasing, rhythm) and Lucky Thompson (tone, sub-tone, ballad attitude): a link I did not suspect was waiting to be uncovered.

And did Herman Wright ever sound better than he does here?

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