Ron Tanner

Drummer Mitch Mitchell, sixty-two years old, died abruptly last week, apparently of heart failure. In 1966, when he joined the Jimi Hendrix Experience, he was just nineteen. It is hard to imagine that Jimi Hendrix – genius though he was – would have had as great an impact if it weren’t for Mitch Mitchell. Nobody was doing what Mitchell was doing in rock. He was a jazz drummer through and through. But he had a rocker’s heart and drive. Hendrix was a bluesman gone psychedelic. Together, with the ever-competent Noel Redding on bass, they created fusion before anyone had a name for it.

Miles Davis’s landmark fusion album of 1970, Bitches’ Brew, owes a nod to Hendrix mostly because of Mitchell’s jazz-inspired treatment of Hendrix’s arrangements. Few drummers on the rock scene at the time had Mitchell’s chops. It was obvious that he had studied the jazz greats, especially Elvin Jones , who often kept time with a steady rain of syncopated rolls. This style became Mitchell’s signature and is evident in most of Hendrix’s tune. You can hear it on Hendrix’s first hit, “Hey Joe.” Here, take a listen:
Hey Joe

Listen to the way Mitchell rolls through the lulls between verses, very fast and controlled and varied in every pass – from double-time sixteenth notes to punchy single-stroke triplets. These licks would become the standard of rock power-drumming. But nobody was doing these before Mitchell Not coincidentally, one of his contemporaries, Tony Williams, was Miles Davis’s young drummer. Behind all of these ground-breaking fusion drummers was Max Roach, who — starting in the late 1940s — played jazz drums hard, giving them new authority not simply as a grand-stand noise-maker but as something musical.

To get a firmer sense of what was going on in 1966, take a listen to another version of “Hey Joe” by the rock group Love. It slightly pre-dates Hendrix’s version but stylistically lies a galaxy away. Mind you, Love did a good job with the tune. Still, their limits are painfully clear. Like the Byrds and other groups who tried “Hey Joe” at the time, they could only chase after the melody with a manic drive. Hey Joe by Love

Hendrix’s version has an elegance that comes not only from his bluesy treatment but also from the rain of rhythm that Mitchell supplies. In hearing Mitchell’s jazzy style, less experienced drummers (no pun) thought they had to play solos through every song. Thus began decades of overplaying among rock drummers. Mitchell was always mindful of being an ensemble player. In orchestrating the dynamics of every tune, in making the drums more musical, he elevated Hendrix’s work so far above what other rockers were doing that these albums — “Are you Experienced?”; “Axis Bold As Love”, and “Electric Ladyland” — remain among the best in the rock catalogue.

Alas, Mitchell did not, or could not, fulfill the greatness his debut with Hendrix seemed to promise. He never found another band that allowed him to shine in the same way. Nonetheless, he kept playing and playing well and earning great respect everywhere he went.

The house belonging to Baltimore artist Grace Turnbull was put up for auction recently. Jill and I went to check it out. We’re crazy about old houses. This one was completed in 1928. Turnbull designed it herself. A slate-roofed cottage with lots of stained wood inside and leaded-glass windows, it’s arts-and-crafts mostly. We were surprised to learn that Turnbull, a sculptor and painter, died in 1976. The house has sat empty ever since.

She bequeathed it to the Maryland Historic Society but the Society couldn’t keep it up. Repair of the roof alone will cost $200,000. (Slate roofs last a good 70-100 years but then, when they need replacing, you’re in for a load of trouble.) Turnbull – who lived alone and was still mowing her own lawn when she was in her eighties – envisioned the house as a museum to showcase her art. In fact, she designed the house to do just that. The living room is an open, two-story gallery.

But house museums are closing across the country. Even renown, historic Williamsburg sold off one of its plantation houses recently. And some of the best independent houses, like Mark Twain’s (in Connecticut), are having serious financial trouble. They’re simply way too expensive to keep up and fewer and fewer people are visiting them because old house can’t compete with other distractions, like amusement parks. The result is that an increasing number of these houses are being put into private hands. The ramifications may be grim for historic preservation, especially for anyone hoping to designate and/or bequeath his/her old house to a local government or non-profit.

So, thirty-two years after her death, Ms. Turnbull’s dream hit the hard wall of fiscal reality. The house has an estimated value of $700,000. It’s in one of those well-manicured enclaves with ancient trees and copper-trimmed roofs and late-model luxury cars that looked as groomed as race horses. When I stand in a place like that I keep expecting somebody to escort me out of the neighborhood. “Sorry, sir, do you have business here?” That said, Turnbull’s house isn’t anything exceptional – except for the carvings at each corner of the house’s exterior. These are unusual in the extreme. So is Turnbull’s studio, just off the garage at the back of the house.

About 30 people showed up to gawk at the house. You could tell who the serious buyers were. They looked nothing like Jill and me. Some gritty speculator types were in attendance too (they looked more like us), but the house wouldn’t go cheap, we were sure. Just before the auction was about to begin, the auctioneers surprised us by stopping the sale. Apparently someone had made an attractive offer that morning and that was the end of business.

What about all of Turnbull’s art? That was auctioned – in a widely publicized sale — the next day at the auctioneer’s showroom. I went out of curiosity. Turnbull’s paintings are impressionistic (she was 20 in 1900) and very nicely done. Her sculpture is more eclectic and ranges widely. Jill really wanted something of Turnbull’s. I decided to wait for a lull in the bidding. Sometimes at an auction, the bidders get weary for a bit and let some items go cheap. As it turns out, during one of those lulls, I got a table sculpture called “Aztec head.”

Like everything else Jill and I own, it’s damaged, but very cool. We buy paintings with rips, vases with cracks, chairs with splits – we could open a museum of broken things. The only problem is, in today’s financial climate, nobody would visit it. Some said it was a tragedy that Turnbull’s collection would be scattered across the country after such a sale. True, it would have been a grand tribute to the artist to preserve all her work in one place. On the other hand, a little piece of her world is now making art-lovers happy in many homes like ours. And it’s possible that more will see her creations in this way than in manner she dreamed.