He's not as well-known as a lot of folks who've left us recently — and at age 96, his death does not come as a shock — but we have to note the passing of Bob Mitchell last Saturday.
In the above photo, Bob is seated at an organ. It seemed like Bob was always seated at an organ. He played one for the L.A. Dodgers between innings. He played in a wide array of venues to accompany silent movies. He was especially good at punctuating the moments and beats in a film, improvising with a perfect sense of scale — never too grand, never too subtle. He made a lot of great movies even better for a lot of us.
Bob did other things as well, mostly in the area of choir music. This obit will tell you about some of them. I just wanted to tell you how good he was at what he did.