Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Oliver Edward Mitchell  was born April 8, 1927 in Los Angeles, California. He was the son of Harold Mitchell, lead trumpeter for MGM Studios, who taught him to play the trumpet.

Mitchell would go on to play in big bands for Harry James, Buddy Rich and Pérez Prado, among others, as well as the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In the 1960s, he joined The Wrecking Crew, a group of studio and session musicians who played anonymously on many records for popular singers of the time, as well as theme songs for television, film scores, and advertising jingles.

Mitchell was an original member of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass. He would go on to have his own bands, Ollie Mitchell’s Sunday Band, and the Olliephonic Horns

Moving to Puako, Hawaii in 1995 he founded the Horns. In 2010, he published his memoir, Lost, But Making Good Time: A View from the Back Row of the Band. He stopped playing the trumpet toward the end of his life, due to macular degeneration and hand problems from an automobile accident.

Trumpeter Ollie Mitchell, who recorded with Chet Baker, Harry James, Stan Kenton, Irene Kral, Shorty Rogers, Pete Rugolo, Dan terry and Gerry Wilson among others,  suffered from cancer and passed away on May 11, 2013.

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