Music of the Sphere(s)
VICTORIA KINGHAM
Robert Mitchell inhabits a musical sphere which John Fordham, writing in The Guardian 14 years ago, called ‘private’. His albums from 2008 onwards corroborate this view in several ways. The Greater Good, with trio Tom Mason (bass) and Richard Spaven (drums), could probably be classed as a meditation on modern popular music: there’s an extreme spaciousness about Mitchell’s approach to a melody and often, like Thelonious (‘Sphere’) Monk, he will imply a chord with one or two seemingly random, but actually judiciously placed, notes. That album contains an off-the-wall version of Wayne Shorter’s (already off-the-wall) Dance Cadaverous, which is one of those jazz tunes that puzzles you on first hearing but which thirty years later you hear and understand as seminal to a whole genre. (Playing along with Shorter was pianist Herbie Hancock in his more abstract phase, before he became a Head Hunter). Mitchell’s version of this particular danse macabre pays tribute to the melody, takes liberties with the time signature and chords, but retains an authentic testament to the modern jazz tradition. Also within that tradition is a stunningly deconstructed and reassembled version of original trip-hop band Massive Attack’s Teardrop.
Mitchell’s 2011 album The Embrace (same trio) features a version of Alberto Balsalm (minus the second l, which perhaps contravenes the trade mark rights of the shampoo – who knows?). Same riff as the original by Aphix Twin, which has subsequently been classed as ‘intelligent dance music’, but Mitchell’s signature exploratory style renders it other-worldly. There’s an early drum-and-bass hit too, 4Hero’s Third Stream, the original of which contains a notable solo by Chris Bowden on soprano saxophone, given, by Mitchell, a similar deconstructive treatment. Notably on this same album is Schumann’s Traumerei (a piano tune everyone knows even if they don’t know what it’s called or who wrote it) which Mitchell takes beyond itself and its perfect, well-worn melodies to some other dream sphere.
LEFTITUDE
The Glimpse, an astonishing, left-hand-only, solo album from 2013, contains (appropriately) Leftitude, which subsequently named a piano festival Mitchell produced, which was an alternative, in name and form, to the Latitude Festival. It’s probably a bit of leftitude which has prompted the display of left-handed brilliance which we are promised as part of Mitchell’s solo visit here. There’s another classical piece too on that album, Mompou’s Prelude No. 6 (pour la main gauche). Mompou, who lived in Barcelona and died at a great age seems under-recognised; listen to some of his searingly lovely preludes, like Jeune Filles Au Jardin, and you’ll wonder why.
Zeitgeist, with cellist Shirley Smart, is a mutual exploration which seeks to extend the role of improvisation in the classical tradition (part of Mitchell’s background: he currently holds a professorship of Jazz Piano at Guildhall). A more recent collaboration is with coruscating multicultural, multi-genre, multi-instrumentalist Zayn Mohammed, who along with playing electric guitar in a kind of Hendrix-inspired, energy-fuelled jazz extension, is equally gifted on oud, sarod, ud, rebab, and ney. The duo, and their album, are called Little Black Book – a title which perhaps refers to Mitchell’s political approach to music but which is also a tribute to the universality of the jazz approach. Mitchell also writes poetry, some of which he recites on this album and some which we will hear on the night. Thus Little Black Book as a title has multiple connotations: comedic, romantic, notational. Black signifies what it is, the Blackness of Jazz as American music, the Blackness of a culture, of a movement, of a race.
Besides making eleven hugely varied albums, Mitchell has collaborated with a who’s who of international music, including Billy Harper, Greg Osby, Courtney Pine CBE, Alicia Olatuja, Orphy Robinson, Steve Coleman, Phil Ranelin, Omar Puente, Ernesto Simpson, Dayme Arocena, Jason Rebello, Basement Jaxx, Dub Colossus, Daniel Casimir, Joshua Redman, and Jacqui Dankworth MBE.
This concert will be a unique opportunity to see Mitchell display all his creative diversity. His solo performance at Christ Church St. Leonards. will include original music, improvisation, left-hand-only music, poetry and works by legendary composers of all genres. Expect to see a master musician and improviser at work, in Hastings’ beautiful Christ Church St. Leonards.
Sunday 3 January 2026 at Christ Church St Leonards. Time 7.30, doors open 7 pm, Saturday 3 January. Tickets on the door £12, or in advance only from Reg Hendrickse – call on 07510 887174.
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