Blue Mitchell - Many Shades Of Blue (1974) [Mainstream: vinyl 24/48]

I acquired a sealed copy of this, Mitchell's final recording for Mainstream. It finds him well advanced down the jazz-funk road, though it's good of its kind and there are still glimmers of Mitchell the trumpeter who graced those Riverside and Blue Note albums of the 50s and 60s.
With one glowing exception*, the remaining recordings, under his own name, for RCA and Impulse were to be even more faceless.

However I am well aware that many do not share my reservations of this genre and for those I'll leave the last word with Cheeba, who posted his mp3 vinyl rip over at his Soundalogical blog back back in 2009:

I'm the biggest sucker for Blue Mitchell's 70s Mainstream sides. They were a major component of my initiation into the realm of jazzfunk and the first three are etched in my mind forever so, thanks the psychological process of imprinting, his sides are among the sine qua non of the milieu for me.

As usual, Blue has a stellar line up behind him here since it seems Mitchell and Sarah Vaughan were the only artists on whom Shad actually spent proper money. The two are also tied as the most voluminously released artists on MRL (both providing 7 albums of new material for Shad in a few short years) so their stature, productivity and faithfulness were probably big factors in that equation. Not counting the split with Roy Haynes when Shad was in scavenger mode, this is the last LP Mitchell released on the label before it shuttered, after which he moved on to a series of labels.
Among these were RCA (Stratosonic Nuances, Funktion Junction) and ABC (African Violet, Summer Soft) where he would be slathered in strings and discofied to such a degree that on occasion he might as well have been just another one of the session musicians. Never again* would he regain the raw funkiness and full-on souljazz feeling that typifies his Mainstream output. Mitchell would die before he had a chance to do so, passing away prior to the end of the decade at the relatively early age of 49.

01 - Where It's At
02 - Harmony Of The Underworld
03 - Funky Walk
04 - Blue Funk
05 - Golden Feathered Bid
06 - Beens And Taters
07 - Funny Bone
08 - Hot Stuff

James Bossy, Jon Faddis, Irwin "Marky" Markowitz, Blue Mitchell (trumpet) Frank Vicari (tenor sax) Joe Farrell (tenor sax, flute) Seldon Powell (tenor, baritone sax) Joe Beck, Sam T. Brown, John Tropea (guitar) Wilbur Bascomb Jr., Michael Moore (Fender bass) James Madison (drums)
NYC, 1974

*[Cheeba was obviously unaware of his 1977 recording Stablemates]