{"id":1447,"date":"2014-02-27T10:16:51","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T09:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/statensmusikverk.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/?p=1447"},"modified":"2017-10-27T15:34:44","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T13:34:44","slug":"manadens-bild-red-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/2014\/02\/27\/manadens-bild-red-mitchell\/","title":{"rendered":"M\u00e5nadens bild: Red Mitchell"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Red<\/a>

Red Mitchell, 1991. Foto: Christer Landergren<\/p><\/div>\n

M\u00e5nadens bild fr\u00e5n\u00a0Svenskt visarkiv<\/a>\u00a0\u00e4r fr\u00e5n 1991 och f\u00f6rest\u00e4ller jazzbasisten Red Mitchell (1927\u20131992), avbildad av jazzfotografen Christer Landergren.<\/p>\n

Keith Moore Mitchell f\u00f6ddes i New York den 20 september 1927. Han visade tidigt intresse f\u00f6r musik. Under uppv\u00e4xten i New Jersey, blev han uppmuntrad av sina f\u00f6r\u00e4ldrar att satsa p\u00e5 musik. Efter nio \u00e5r av pianolektioner, fyra \u00e5r av altsax och klarinett, b\u00f6rjade han spela bas i arm\u00e9n 1947.<\/p>\n

Den 8 november 1992 dog Red Mitchell av en stroke bara 10 m\u00e5nader efter att han och hans fru Diane, hade \u00e5terv\u00e4nt till USA fr\u00e5n Sverige, d\u00e4r han hade varit bosatt sedan 1968.<\/p>\n

L\u00e4s Doug Ramseys text om Red Mitchell nedan, som ocks\u00e5 ing\u00e5r i CD-skivan\u00a0What I Am <\/em>med\u00a0Red Mitchell\u00a0<\/em>som \u00e4r utgiven p\u00e5 <\/em><\/strong>Caprice Records<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following his social and political impulses, in 1968 Red Mitchell moved from the United States to Sweden. His 24 years in Scandinavia were among the most fulfilling in the life and career of a man honored for the brilliance of his music making. In his book Cats of Any Color<\/em>, Gene Lees quoted Mitchell\u2019s account of discovering his compatibility with Sweden. It happened when he was 27 years old and on tour with a group of musicians that included Billie Holiday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were being driven around Stockholm the first day in a stretch limousine,\u201d Mitchell told Lees.\u00a0 \u201cBillie thought they were just showing us the nicer parts of town. She said, \u2018Take us to the slums, I want to see the slums.\u2019 Somebody said, \u201cThere are no slums.\u2019 And she said, \u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd somebody else said, \u2018There\u2019s no Beverly Hills, either.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I reacted to that. I said, \u2018No slums, no Beverly Hills? Is this just Stockholm you\u2019re talking about?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018No, it\u2019s like that all around Sweden\u2014every city.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Jesus! Dis mus\u2019 be de place.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was in 1954. Fourteen years later, Mitchell became one of several expatriate American musicians who left behind what he described to Lees as \u201cthe institutionalization<\/em> of violence and racism\u201d in the US in the late 1960s. He emphasized that he was also attracted to Sweden by the cultural atmosphere, including the quality of the country\u2019s jazz artists and its classical musicians. He made close connections in the Stockholm jazz community, and he expanded beyond the playing that had made him one of the most honored bassists of his generation. Long admired by his colleagues for his verbal and literary skills, over the years Mitchell had occasionally sung original songs with lyrics reflecting his humanism and his dedication to an emerging environmental movement. His Caprice albums gave him important outlets for all of his skills\u2014on the bass, at the piano and as composer and lyricist.<\/p>\n

By the time he recorded What I Am <\/em>a decade after his arrival in Sweden, Red had become more than just another transplanted American musician escaping benighted politics and an unfair social system. His widow Diane, a fellow American whom he met in Sweden, told me, \u201cHe realized that he had to say hello to the Swedish people if he was going to get enough recognition.\u201d He took a job in the house band on a popular television talk show. On occasion, the host would interview him. Diane said, \u201cRed loved to talk. That\u2019s how people got to know him outside of the jazz world, so that he was considered one of those icons of Swedish entertainment life at the time, playing with people like Monica Zetterlund and Svend Asmussen and a lot with Alice Babs, who was really the big national jazz star.<\/p>\n

With this album and Blues For a Crushed Soul<\/em> by the quintet he named Communication, Red\u2019s presence in Sweden grew. Trumpeter Bosse Broberg remembers the pleasure of working with Red.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis emotional gifts were indeed tremendous, emerging from his comprehension of the word \u2018communication,\u2019 for him a term with many dimensions, angles and facts of human and universal nature. Musically, I learned from Red to expand my modest ambitions into directions I didn\u2019t imagine being able to achieve. Besides Red was also one of the most humorous persons I\u00b4ve had the privilege to know and you can easily trace that in his wonderful philosophical lyrics. Of course on top of this, his music has a very special \u2018tinge.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in this CD package you will find Red\u2019s appreciation of Broberg and the other members of Communication.<\/p>\n

Red\u2019s \u201cThe Sun and the Water,\u201d helped stimulate the country\u2019s growing environmental consciousness and became a hit. Still, Diane remembers, \u201cThe general public probably didn\u2019t realize how much value he put on his songs and his poetry.\u201d Public awareness increased when Red began playing piano and singing his songs in the bar of the Stortorgsk\u00e4llaren restaurant on the square in old town Stockholm. Then, following the success of his Caprice solo album Home Suite CAP 21313<\/em>, the company arranged for two concert tours of Sweden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey hired me to be the roadie,\u201d Diane said. \u201cIt was just Red and me and the sound system, and we traveled around to 44 little towns where they had small libraries or art museums, nice intimate settings. It was terrific. That was when he was really at one with himself, playing the bass and being able to go to the piano and sing. He really wanted to communicate his thoughts. He was a great poet, and he was funny. You can hear it in the lyrics. The biggest thing I miss about not having him here is that we used to laugh all the time. When you live alone, you\u2019re not laughing as much, you know, but he used to have me on the floor laughing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1992, Red and Diane returned from Sweden to the United States. They chose another haven, the Pacific Northwest, where many prominent musicians were seeking refuge from the pressures of life in New York and Los Angeles. From their new home in Salem, Oregon, Red played engagements up and down the west coast. Some resulted in recordings, among them splendid duo albums with pianists Roger Kellaway and George Cables, and one with guitarist Joe Beck. In late October, Red had a mild heart attack that put him in the hospital. Released, he celebrated a favorable report on his health and, on November 3, the election of Bill Clinton as president of the United States. That night, he had a stroke and fell into a coma. Five days later, he was gone.<\/p>\n

\/Doug Ramsey<\/p>\n

Doug Ramsey<\/a>\u00a0is the author of the award-winning Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond<\/em>. He blogs about jazz and other matters at Rifftides.<\/em><\/p>\n

L\u00e4s mer om Caprice Records utgivning av What I am
\n<\/em><\/a>L\u00e4s mer om Red Mitchell<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M\u00e5nadens bild fr\u00e5n Svenskt visarkiv \u00e4r fr\u00e5n 1991 och f\u00f6rest\u00e4ller jazzbasisten Red Mitchell. L\u00e4s mer →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":1458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[9],"tags":[99,50,49,98],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musikverket-old.test.consids5.se\/aktuelltfransvensktvisarkiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}