Nicole Mitchell (musician)
| Nicole Mitchell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 17, 1967 Syracuse, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, teacher |
| Instruments | Flute |
| Associated acts | Black Earth Ensemble |
| Website | www |
Nicole Mitchell (born 1967) is an American jazz flautist, composer, and former president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Mitchell was born on February 17, 1967 in Syracuse, New York, where she was raised until age eight, when her family moved to Anaheim, California. Her first instruments were piano and viola, which she started playing in fourth grade. She was classically trained in flute and played in youth orchestras as a teenager. Though she initially had intended to major in mathematics in college, she took a class in jazz music from Jimmy Cheatham while a college student at University of California in San Diego, and took to busking in the streets playing jazz flute. After two years at UCSD, she transferred to Oberlin College in 1987.
In 1990 she moved to Chicago, where she played on the streets and worked for Third World Press, a publishing house devoted to black culture. She met members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and soon started playing with the all-women ensemble Samana under the AACM umbrella. In 1992 she left Chicago, living in New Orleans, and gave birth in 1994 to a girl named Aaya. She returned to school in 1993 and then again in 1996, completing her BA at Chicago State University in 1998; she earned her Master's from Northern Illinois University in 2000. She met Hamid Drake in 1995 and worked with him extensively in the second half of the decade. In 1997 she began an association with saxophonist David Boykin, who encouraged her to start her own group, which she called the Black Earth Ensemble. In the early 2000s, she became a co-host for the Avant-Garde Jazz Jam Sessions in Chicago that were started by Boykin, bassist Karl E. H. Seigfried, and drummer Mike Reed.
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