Robert Mitchell Trio – Saleem Raman, left, Mitchell and Tom Mason.

Robert Mitchell Trio comes to Jazz Hastings

Highly respected jazz pianist, composer and innovator Robert Mitchell is bringing his trio to Jazz Hastings on Tuesday 4 July for a special pre-release session featuring tracks from his forthcoming album A Vigil for Justice, A Vigil for Peace. Julian Norridge sets the scene.

Alongside Mitchell will be long-time associate Tom Mason on bass and more recent collaborator Saleem Raman on percussion. They will be playing as usual at the East Hastings Sea Angling Association on the Stade.

Over more than 20 years, Mitchell has established a formidable reputation as a hugely resourceful pianist and composer. Initially inspired by the likes of Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, his music is now modern and exciting while retaining a soulfulness and humanity worthy of the classics.

He first emerged as an important member of the London jazz scene in the early 90s playing with two very different groups, Quite Sane and Tomorrow’s Warriors. One played New York inspired fusion/hip-hop, the other 40s-60s bebop/hardbop.

Robert Mitchell.

This diversity helped Mitchell develop a wide-angle view of what jazz can achieve, which led one critic to comment that “Mitchell’s command of avant-garde and mainstream piano vocabulary is impeccable.”

Variety of formats

He has released eight previous albums featuring a variety of formats. He has recorded with his 4/6 piece group Panacea, with his trio, as a duo with Cuban jazz violinist Omar Puente and as a solo pianist playing his own compositions entirely for the left hand.

In 2004 he won the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation (as part of the F-ire Collective) and was subsequently credited with Best Jazz Album in the BBC DJ Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards. Earlier this year, he and his trio completed a highly successful tour of Poland.

Bassist Tom Mason began his music career as a classical violinist, switching to bass at the age of 18 and going on to study jazz bass at the Royal Academy of Music. He has been playing with Robert Mitchell for more than a decade. Saleem Raman is, among other things, the house drummer at Ronnie Scott’s club.

Robert Mitchell Trio Jazz Hastings July gig, Tuesday 4 July, East Hastings Sea Angling Association (on the Stade behind the lifeboat station). Doors open at 7.45pm for an 8.30 start, tickets £10 on the door.

Also in: Music & Sound