Many Shades of Blue

Richard Allen ‘Blue’ Mitchell was less well known than Miles or Clifford Brown or Chet Baker, but well respected in jazz as an original trumpet player with a unique melodic approach and impeccable tone. He’d already played with Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley and recorded a series of albums for Blue Note and Riverside when he arrived at Bob Shad’s Mainstream label in 1971 and this, his last of six albums for the label, was a clear demonstration on just how much the funk genre had coloured his work in the early seventies, with all eight tracks here exemplars of the various flavours and style of mid seventies dancefloor jazz funk and fusion. With its highly danceable grooves, lengthy rhythmic vamps, in-the-pocket arrangements, Kool & The Gang-esque ensemble horn lines, and general upbeat, dancefloor atmosphere, it’s a good-time, jazz/funk/soul/fusion dance party of an album.