Richard "Blue" Mitchell may not have been the best trumpeter in straight-ahead jazz but he's among the best who didn't become a household name. Mitchell didn't display the the sharp timbre and fanciful trips up and down scales like contemporaries such as Freddie Hubbard or Booker Little. He never developed Miles Davis' affecting, melancholy cadence. But as Orrin Keepnews put it, "players with a real, deep melodic sensitivity and richness of tone are a good deal harder to come by," and he accurately identified Mitchell as one of those rare types.

Coming out of Miami in the fifties, Mitchell's career was helped along by his familiarity with fellow south Florida native Cannonball Adderley, who recommended that Keepnews check out a local live performance. Keepnews was sufficiently impressed to bring the young trumpeter back up to New York (an earlier stint at the Big Apple was short-lived). Soon, Blue was a member of a vital Horace Silver Quintet that thrived from 1958 until 1964.

Mitchell soon afterwards formed his own quintet that featured a couple of young guys who went on to make names for themselves later on: longtime Davis drummer Al Foster and this piano player named Chick Corea.

As for Mitchell's own budding career a few years earlier, his signing to Keepnews' Riverside label not only led to plum sideman work for Silver and Adderley, but began a short but fruitful batch of recordings of albums for the label as a leader that holds their own against some of the most acclaimed hard bop albums of the late fifties and early sixties.

It's perhaps Blue's third album for Riverside that stands out as his best of his pre-Blue Note works: the 1959 minor classic, Blue Soul. It's on this outing where Mitchell achieves a critical level of confidence. What's more, he's backed more than ably by a cast of all-stars: Wynton Kelly (piano), Jimmy Heath (tenor sax), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Sam Jones (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums).

Sam Jones was another Cannonball favorite from Florida who has been discussed on this space before as a vital Riverside sideman, as have the legendary Philly Joe Jones. Wynton Kelly was Miles' piano player at the time and when these sessions were cut, he was just weeks removed from the history-making Kind Of Blue recordings.

Jimmy Heath, the brother of the Modern Jazz Quartet's Percy Heath, was at the time about to embark on his own recording career as a leader, but already getting a reputation as a fine composer. Curtis Fuller was a up and comer at trombone and had already appeared on John Coltrane's lone Blue Note-r Blue Trane. His already-accomplished technique was the unsung hero on that early 'Trane classic.

Mitchell was one of the earliest musicians to recognize the songwriting acumen of saxophonist Bennie Golsen, having recorded the first version of "Blues March" the prior year. This time around, Mitchell adapts Golsen's delightful "Minor Wamp," which was only preceded by Fuller's read on it months earlier. Mitchell even brought in Golsen himself to arrange the tune.

It's on this hard-swinging number where we first notice what a formidable front line Mitchell, Heath, and Fuller made. As a unit they provided a tight, full sound that sounds as substantial as twice as many horns. Mitchell's muted horn makes the most of the short solo turn, with every note being just right. Heath likewise is fundamentally sound, and Fuller cleverly throws in a "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" reference on his turn. Philly Joe is his usual, wonderfully reckless self and Sam Jones is laying down an indestructible foundation right from the opening notes. It's a lot of maximal bop compressed into less than four minutes.