 I’ll
See You When I Get There Part I
by The Galactic Traveler
Many may have seen and perhaps even had the pleasure to hear Tyler
Mitchell music perform his bass throughout his five year odyssey
in San Miguel. But few know the story of this most accomplished
musician and how he came to become one of our town’s most
interesting personalities.
Tyler was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 7th 1958, to mother,
Betty Jasper Mitchell and father, Theodore Mitchell. Betty Mitchell
was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and moved to Chicago when she
was about 3 or 4 years old. Theodore Mitchell was born in Little
Rock, Arkansas, and came to Chicago when he was 4 or 5 years old.
Tyler’s parents grew up on the South side of Chicago in the
1930’s. His father, better known as “Caton” Mitchell,
was a gifted and self-taught artist. His name became synonymous
with jazz music itself and its masters. And the sounds of jazz frequently
filled the Mitchell household. Tyler will tell you, “I heard
these songs inside my head all my life. And I remember hearing these
songs years later when I would become a musician.”
 And
through Caton’s professional and social circles, jazz musicians,
many of them well known, would often frequent the Mitchell household.
Tyler’s Mother worked three jobs. His father worked at the
post office during the day for 12-13 years while he worked on many
of his paintings at night. Tyler recalls his father calling in sick
for a week sometimes and having to get a doctor’s note so
he could finish a painting he was working on. When Caton was about
40 years old, Betty got a job with Delta airlines. Tyler recalls
his mother telling his father then, “I don’t want you
to work. You’re too tired. Stop working at the post office.
I want you to do what you want to do.” Which was paint. Tyler’s
father would always say his mother was the rock of the family. “He
always came down like he was,” Tyler recalls, “but she
was the one that was the silent, heavy duty, and held this thing
together and made like a unit. They really understood each other
and complimented each other for 44 years.”
When Tyler’s mother started working at the airlines the family
began traveling. “First time I got on a plane was 1969,”
Tyler reminisces. “And on our first trip we went to Mexico
and San Francisco. First we had to go to Texas and then we had to
take a bus. It was my father’s first time out of the country
as well. I remember that long bus ride, man. It seemed like forever
when you were a kid and we didn’t know any better. My sister
was the only one who could speak a little Spanish, and she was only
eleven. Nobody else could speak Spanish including my father. So
we were probably getting on coaches, and it seemed like we were
transferring busses an awful lot. Anyway, that was that was my first
time in Mexico. We went to Monterrey, Mexico City and Acapulco on
that trip. I didn’t even know San Miguel existed then.”
Tyler’s father was familiar with the Mexican art movement
of the time. “My father might not have been hip to San Miguel,
but he was hip was hip enough to know Diego Rivera and Mexican art.
He also worked with a lot of Mexicans.” Tyler’s father
really pushed him into art. And he used to paint with his dad when
he was four or five years old. “He was always proud of my
artwork,” Tyler says. “But he was such a taskmaster.
I would finish something and he would tell me, ‘Do it again,
do it again.’ And I’d be all mad, I was like, ‘But
I like this man.’ But I kept drawing or painting. I could
paint before I could even spell. I always thought I was dyslexic
or something because I’m left handed. I play with my right,
but I’m left handed.”
Tyler’s father loved jazz, he loved music, and he loved musicians.
Although he never played a musical instrument himself. Tyler recalls
his father becoming a bit bitter with a few musicians later in his
life. Although many musicians appreciated his art, he would often
hear his father lament, “Everybody loves art but they don’t
want to pay for it.”
The neighborhood that Tyler group up in, the south side of Chicago,
was a tight community back in the 1960’s. “Everyone
considered the south side between maybe 23rd Street to maybe 79th
Street, 63rd Street. From the east side, to maybe Park Street.”
His father and mother went to two different High Schools across
town from each other. And a lot of famous musicians and artists
came from that area, like members of Nat King Cole’s band
to half of Sun Ra’s band. “There used to be more of
a musical community and camaraderie back in the day.”
 “My
father couldn’t afford to buy me an instrument,” Tyler
recounts of his formal introduction to music. “First of all,
my mother made me take piano lessons in Catholic school. But we
never owned a piano! Try to appreciate the fact that all the other
kids in class did have a piano to practice on. So I would show up
for recitals and everybody would think I was stupid because I’d
be playing the same song from the first lesson. And then one time,
I was coming home on the bus daydreaming, and I forgot my bag with
all my sheet music in it. And I had to chase the bus down, crying.
I thought I was in trouble man. But really, it was the best thing
that ever happened to me. I was so glad I didn’t have to look
stupid for the teacher anymore.”
Tyler was free from the excruciating lessons, but not from the instrument.
“As a musician, it’s not absolutely necessary to learn
the piano. But I wish I had studied the piano more, and I’m
going to start studying it more, because it’s the grandfather
of all instruments. Especially when you’re writing, because
you can find everybody’s part or instrument on the piano keyboard.
So you can get all these chords and all these colors and voices
that you can’t get with any other single instrument. I got
to the piano later on though. I never owned a piano, but when I
was a full-grown man, I started again from scratch. But I knew enough
about music through the bass by this time, and I just applied my
bass knowledge, and it helped me write music.”
It was about 1969 or ’70, when Tyler’s father began
working on one of his first murals. “He was living like a
hermit, reading a lot of books and stuff. One day he came home—he
would always talk shit with these street-talkin-hustlers—and
turns out one day he brought home a flute. I was about 13 years
old and I thought this flute was slick. So I wanted to start taking
flute lessons. He tried to get me to play the horn, but I really
didn’t want to play the clarinet or saxophone, I wanted to
play the flute line. I was in the high school band and I was really
proud of my flute. I learned how to read and write music—I
also learned how to smoke pot. I would go off and smoke pot on break
and then come back to band class and be hyperventilating. I’d
get dizzy man. I came home one day and I thought about it, while
smoking a joint, and I said I gotta give one of these up: the flute,
or this joint. I never looked at the flute again.”
But music kept following and seducing Tyler. “Meanwhile around
that time The Jackson Five was happening and everyone wanted to
put together a basement band. Everybody was trying to play instruments
because the Jackson 5 was the fucking shit. In the eighth grade,
a buddy of mine named Freddie who played guitar and was into revolutionary
shit, decided we should form a band. He said, ‘We gotta put
us a band together. I’ll play guitar, you play the drums and
you play the bass.’ And that’s how I arrived at the
bass. And that summer vacation I got a job in a restaurant to save
some money. I was washing dishes by hand, nine hours a day, six
days a week, $65 dollars a week—and my boss was taking taxes
out. Now that I had the money, I had to go buy me a bass. No one
ever really bought me any instruments. I guess my parents figured
if I had to do it myself, then I really wanted to do it.”
“The next job was to find me a left-handed bass. Now
my father took me out to find this bass because he wasn’t
going to let me waste my hard earned money. He was like that. I
remember when I had to buy my graduation suit. And we went to the
store and my dad asked me what kind of suit I wanted, and I picked
out the most Superfly-looking suit they had. My father just busted
out laughing at me and asked me what other suits I liked. After
about the third or fourth store, I could see where he was going.
He was going for a more traditional suit. And after a while, I started
not to feel so bad about this other suit. Then we went to go eat.
And over lunch, he would ask me very seriously what suit I was going
to go back and get. And I ended up picking the traditional one my
father liked. And I was so glad too, because later my friend, who’s
father would buy him anything, ended up getting that Superfly suit
and he looked so ridiculous. And my father was like, ‘See,
look at him!’ My father and I butt heads a few times over
the art thing or whatever, but he really had the formula man. I
didn’t take advantage of it enough when he was alive, but
he was always dropping these jewels on me. He could be so forceful
sometimes that he was intimidating. He really had self-control.
I respect that.”
 “So
I couldn’t find a left-handed base anywhere. But Jimi Hendrix,
who was left-handed, just turned his guitar upside down. So what’s
the big deal? Just turn it upside down, I thought. Is that asking
too much? Except I didn’t know how to play yet. So everything
I learned was the opposite. I’d get confused trying to play
the strings upside down. I said, ‘I’m just going to
play right-handed.’” This actually worked to Tyler’s
advantage, because this freed his stronger left hand to manipulate
the complicated chords. And he could leave his weaker right hand
to strum the base.
The band was short-lived. The drummer didn’t take rehearsal
as seriously. And by the time high school was ready to start, Tyler
and the other band members were more interested in girls than playing
music. “High School was almost over, I was getting really
bored again, and I started getting confused. I’m not going
to start jumping around from this, to this, to this. I’m gonna
go read back on some shit that I started and gave up on, instead
of starting something else completely different. So automatically
I said, ‘I’m going back to this bass, because I can’t
let this shit stop right there. I still had a talent for the bass.”
To Be Continued in the next issue of La Jerga…
Tyler Mitchell’s father, Caton Mitchell, was an acclaimed
and recognized muralist and painter in his time. His undiscovered
works (some reprinted here) will be on exhibition on January 31,
2004 at OM Studio gallery, Recreo #21A. Stay tuned for details…
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