Blue Mitchell – The Message
Blue Mitchell – P.T. Blues
Blue Mitchell – Steal The Feel
{Been out of town and super busy lately, but I’ll be returning to the KPFK airwaves on Sunday (and to Facebook as well!) and then back here with new posts on Monday April 9th!!!}
Though it was often outshined by Blue Note and Prestige, Mainstream records put out quite a few solid and funky releases in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Case in point, this album by Trumpeter Blue Mitchell (who cut a number of nice LPs on Blue Note himself). The Last Tango = Blues features a big band with some familiar names to the funky faithful, David T. Walker on guitar, Charles Kynard on organ, Chuck Rainey on bass, Ray Pounds, Paul Humphrey and King Errisson on drums and percussion. Many of those players were also featured on the Chubukos/Afrique recordings that produced “House Of The Rising Funk,” and they definitely bring the funk on this LP, especially on tracks like “Steal The Feel” and “P.T. Blues.” But, the real reason to track down this one is the instrumental version of Cymande’s all-world classic, “The Message.” While I know there’s at least one other cover (a spanish version by Hielo Ardiente), I’m not sure if there is another instrumental of this track. Blue and the boys work it on out to great effect and so when I ran across this LP at Atomic recently (now my second time owning this one, first one copped at Groove Merchant many moons ago), I simply had to share my great fortune with you.
Cheers,
Michael