Paul F. Mitchell

Soul - jazz songwriter - producer - engineer Paul Mitchell was born in Atlanta in 1931 and died 24th January, 2000. Aged 68. During his high school tenure played alto horn in the school band. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Morris Brown College, playing French horn in the school´s concert band and trumpet in a jazz band. Three years in Army bands followed and it was only during this time that Paul became interested in piano. After his discharge in 1955, he became the music director at Central High School in Newnan and started teaching himself to play the piano. He taught music in Atlanta's public schools through 1972, the same year he was named STAR teacher at Southwest High School. One of his pupil's was Hamilton Bohannon. Bohannon credits Mitchell as being "One of the biggest influences in my life, my first music teacher, a guy named Paul Mitchell."(1) He formed the Paul Mitchell Trio in 1960 and was the house band at Paschal's La Carrousel, Atlanta's first modern jazz club. He played there four years, opening for some of the biggest names in music including Ramsey Lewis, Aretha Franklin and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley In March, 1964 the Atlanta Playboy Club opened with the Paul Mitchell Trio in the Living Room. The trio played there for three years. It was at the Playboy club that Dante Stephensen saw the Paul Mitchell Trio and invited Mitchell to move to Dante's Down the Hatch before the restaurant/club opened, Dante's went on to become an institution in Atlanta and unique in the nation. For 30 years, Mr. Mitchell played jazz six nights a week, on the same Steinway piano, to a full house at Dante's in Underground Atlanta and later in Buckhead. Mitchell's contribution and music is both discussed and used in the documentary made to celebrate the closing of the restaurant, and the retirement of the owner, Dante Stephensen. (1) Black Stars 1976-04: Vol 5 Iss 6