IRISH NEWS - 20-6-09

Robert Mitchell Interview (Trevor Hodgett)

' Robert Mitchell, a sublime and inventive pianist , recently became the latest in an ever-lengthening line of great British and American jazz musicians who have come to Ireland keen to work with fast-rising local drummer David Lyttle.
"David's tremendously talented," he enthuses. " And he's a go-getter. At this point in time, with everything thats going on, that's a requisite. There're tons of talented musicians around but not necessarily all with the same outlook of being able to make things happen."
Surprisingly, Mitchell himself actually studied classical rather than jazz music at college. " I did audition for a jazz college and i didn't get in, " he admits. "So i studied jointly at City University and the Guildhall , and although there wasn't jazz on the course, the Head of Music was very open-minded. Then i got a scholarship to do an extra year and basially i just spent that year having piano lessons."
" That kind of experience really makes you never forget how hard you have to work and also that there are always more things to learn. Whenever i have a challenge i always remember those days. The memories and the approach and the experience i had with those teachers are always there with me."
Mitchell learnt his jazz skills in a completely different way. "In terms of jazz and improvising, that's been about experiences in bands so there have been two very different halves to my musical life," he explains.
Mitchell is impatient with those non-afficianados who dismiss jazz for being too challenging. "Why is being challenging seen as a bad thing? " he argues. " Someone's put a lot of work into the music so why not give it ten more minutes of your time, to take you out of your comfort zone. I think with any decent art form eventually the light comes on. It can change lives, can be very inspirational, people can be moved by it, and i think that anything with that depth is important."
" You have amazing human problems that we have to address and these art forms go a long way to doing that. In fact i'd go so far as to say that bands are models for society. In bands very diverse people come together with a superb level of problem solving so that's a model for what the human race can acheive."
Mitchell's current album THE GREATER GOOD , which won Gilles Peterson's Radio 1 Jazz Album of the Year award, surprisingly includes an interpretation of TEARDROP by trip-hop legends Massive Attack. " There are lots of versions of the song out there from vocal and guitar to string quartets," he notes, "but there wasn't a piano trio version and i had it in the back of my head for ages. When a tune can work in different formats it's proof that you've got something good on your hands and Teardrop is a great tune."
This version of Teardrop - Mitchell beleives, exemplifies his trio's fluid style: " The bass has a starring role in terms of melody and improvising with the bow but there could be tunes we do where the drums take the melody. It's very open in terms of what can happen rather than automatically going , 'Yes, this is going to be a piano-led tune with all the solos in the same order.'
" We're not worried about sounding like a piano trio is supposed to sound."
Another contemporary non-jazz band to catch Mitchell's attention is Radiohead whose - Everything in Its Right Place he sometimes plays live. " I didn't get them for quite a while," he admits. "Some of the earlier stuff didn't do it for me but that Kid A album turned my ears."
" They're clearly not happy to stay in one place all the time, they have that enquiring nature and that's no different from Miles Davis or anybody who decides you have to expand and take on things that are around in the air at the time. It's great they embrace change as the thing that stays constant in their music as opposed to saying, 'We've had success with that record so we can carry on doing the same record.' They're not about that"
Both live and on record Mitchell's improvisational skills are exceptional. " With improvising you're trying to get in touch with something that takes you on a ride," he reflects. " I've worked with people over long periods and when you come to play there are still things happening which can't be explained, that haven't happened before, with people surprising each other. That's the great thing about jazz : you're doing it there and then in front of an audience."