I’ve always liked Robert Mitchell as a pianist all the way back to J-Life in the 1990s. Live appearances of the Englishman’s I’ve caught include memorably one he performed in 2010 with Matana Roberts and Seb Rochford. But I’m less keen on Mitchell’s poetry. And the tracks that feature it here on this heavy hitting prog-jazz piano/guitar & bass pedal/drums album ‘Peace In Mind’ and ‘Within The Storm’ I happily skipped after a few goes. But don’t worry about that as there’s more on this south London Morley studio recording than enough to be going on with.
He’s far less MBASE inspired these days than he used to be. And his adoption of the Fender Rhodes electric piano extensively helps clarify his often over elaborate ideas elsewhere. I’d pick out ‘Blueprint (of an Infinite Gift)’ as a key track. It’s an unadorned solo piano ballad that makes use of lontano and the innards of the piano to begin with that then goes more prog and bluesy that shows off the inner romantic in Mitchell’s sound very beautifully and how it can be magnified up. Think the spell of Chick Corea’s touch on Crystal Silence a bit minus the vibes. It’s Laurie Lowe on drums, a player with whom Mitchell has worked a lot over the years. ‘Jimi at Granada’ is fun and the most accessible piece. In the course of the album Mitchell also makes use of a keytar. Don’t hold that against him!
I also liked Mitchell’s recent work in another context with Saleem Raman eg with True Think. Mitchell has a brilliant mind and I think a lot of his work that contains almost an operatic intensity to it confuses critics given how hard he is to comprehend and subsequently categorise and not just that how adventurous his sound can be and so takes imagination and effort as a listener to work out the sheer detail of what he does. Certainly a boffin, he was conferred the title of professor in June 2022 from London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
There is more clarity here than a good deal of his recent decade’s output and that’s good news so his message through music – less so poetry – gets out there. Clearly he feels at home in this prog jazz context and Zayn Mohammed’s meaty contributions nudge that move into the album’s more arcane precincts of odd metered spaces and rhythmically exacting passages suitably artfully.
Not his greatest work – that remains The Thread and A Vigil For Justice, A Vigil For Peace where his poetry is far more compelling but certainly Little Black Book marks a considerable return to form.
