Our next featured artist for our Chats with the Cats is bassist Tyler Mitchell.
Growing up in Chicago, Tyler was introduced to Jazz from an early age. "My earliest music experiences were listening to all the great jazz records my dad played almost nonstop at home. You see, my father was a world renowned artist and muralist; he loved jazz and knew many of the greats." (John Coltrane, Max Roach and Miles Davis but to name a few) "It was only natural that I would play jazz because it's all I heard around the house. I come from Chicago, which has a strong jazz and blues history but my father was my main influence."
Tyler cites a visit from John Coltrane to his house when he was 5 as a reason for following music but never thinks of it as a career. "I never thought of music this way. It is just something that I love to do - that's it."
After studying under Donald Raphael Garrett, Tyler moved to New York, joining the Sun Ra Arkestra to record and tour, and also in Art "Taylor's Wailers".
“Les had a special way of directing the band and orchestrating the band that was unlike anybody else. Sun Ra took me to Europe for the first time - there were a lot of guys there in the band, most I didn't know. It was 4/5 guys in a room - it was a real rough house. I was in the band when all the heavy masters were still alive, John Gilmore, Pat Patrick, Charles Davis - it was a great time.”
“Sun ra was a disciplinary - we were practicing 10/12 hours a day. He was a serious task master. He had these really heavy arrangements. A lot of people think his stuff is free playing, we had moments of improvisation, but for the most part we had heavy arrangements. He used to arrange for Fletcher Henderson - that's how he learned. The band rehearsed hard, the horn section was particularly tight. All we did was rehearse when we went on the road.”
Tyler spent over a decade away from New York, I was living in Mexico and travelling through Central America for 10/11 years. It was a culture shock coming back to NY - It was a lot of change, definitely a shock. Many things had changed, I won’t necessarily say for the better for the music, but it definitely changed. There was a whole generation of musicians I didn’t know. "New York is the center of the world. Like the song "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere" New York, New York!! I'm still reaching. I haven't found it yet"
Known for his big sound and mixing old and new jazz concepts, Tyler believes there is a greater need for adaptability with today's musicians. "I think most musicians focus on one genre of jazz. There are not enough jazz artists being versatile. I think we should mix it all up more, because it's all related. It's totally a different scene now with regards to players and academia, which is all cool and everything, but it's really different now - too much emphasis on the school but that’s the way it is. It used to be a lot more on the job training and you’d get your education through the real people. School has the real people too but I guess it's just not like that anymore. Bass players coming up now should be doing it because you love it, try and get out amongst the people rather than just staying amongst friends. I just don’t know if this will be the same coming back after this pandemic. But young and old, I hope that we can all get back to gigging and sharing knowledge.