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Billy Mitchell
Mitchell was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Known for his close association with fellow Detroit based player Thad Jones and work with a variety of big bands including Woody Herman's when he replaced Gene Ammons. In 1949 Mitchell recorded with the Milt Buckner band, and from 1956 to 1957 he played with Dizzy Gillespie in his big band.
From 1957 until 1961 and from 1966 to 1967 Mitchell played with Count Basie, having replaced Lockjaw Davis. In the early 1960s he co-led a group with Al Grey, and also served as musical director to Stevie Wonder for a short time during this period. Mitchell was an exponent of hard-driving post-bop. He died in Rockville Centre, NY,
He is not to be confused with another Billy Mitchell, a jazz-piano keyboardist whose career was most notably with Optimism Records in the 1980s.
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Basie All Stars: Live At Fabrik Vol. 1
by Chris May
Such are the glories of his band's recorded legacy from the 1930s through the 1950s, that the mere mention of Count Basie's name will trigger a Pavlovian response from his fan base. Like no other, the Count Basie Orchestra epitomised big-band swing at its most sublime; reefer fuelled, riff based, loose and louche Kansas City jazz that is irresistible even in 2023, a life-affirming antidote to the barbarity of DL-only albums, generative music and social media. Seasoned ...
read moreBilly Mitchell: Detroit Colossus
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
It's a disgrace that many of Billy Mitchell's leadership albums aren't available on CD or by download. Mitchell was a tenor saxophonist of extraordinary power and skill, and yet today he's virtually unknown. Many jazz musicians had the misfortune of recording for labels in the 1960s and '70s that were so small that the master tapes were lost, erased or misplaced. In the case of Michell, several of his most important recordings were for Xanadu. Sadly, many of the label's ...
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