Billy Mitchell

A hard-swinging tenor saxophonist unrelated to the similarly named crossover keyboardist, Billy Mitchell left his imprint across multiple musical environments. Early on he performed in Detroit alongside Nat Towles’ ensemble and, toward the close of the 1940s, joined Lucky Millinder’s Orchestra in New York. During 1949 he cut a date with Milt Jackson, appeared in the large ensembles led by Milt Buckner and Gil Fuller, and spent two months on the road with Woody Herman’s Second Herd. The opening half of the 1950s found him working Detroit clubs before he entered Dizzy Gillespie’s big band for 1956-1957, where his solo on “Cool Breeze” at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival stood out. From 1957 through 1961 Mitchell held a chair in Count Basie’s Orchestra; in the first years of the following decade he directed a sextet co-starring Al Grey that introduced the young Bobby Hutcherson. He rejoined Basie briefly in 1966-1967, turned to teaching, and made frequent recordings for Xanadu in the later 1970s. As a leader he produced sessions for Dee Gee, Jubilee, Smash, Catalyst, and Xanadu. The influential saxophonist died of lung cancer at his New York residence on April 18, 2001.