Yesterday the last remaining member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, drummer Mitch Mitchell, died at age sixty-two in a Portland hotel. Five years ago, bassist Noel Redding passed away, thirty-three years after the death of front man Hendrix. The triumvirate formed the quintessential 1960s psychedelic band with Mitchell’s jazz-influenced drumming, Redding’s well-measured bass lines, and Hendrix’s expansive yet dynamic improvisational manipulation of the guitar.

Although Hendrix became better known for musical originality, Mitchell was also a great innovator, especially as a leader of fusion drumming, a style conflating jazz and rock in which the drum is heard as more of a dialogue with other instruments.

According to the International Herald Tribune:

Mitch Mitchell, the jazzy and versatile British drummer in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, died Wednesday in a hotel in Portland, Oregon. He was 62 and had recently finished a national tribute tour, Experience Hendrix.

The cause was unknown, said Bob Merlis, publicist for the tour.

Mitchell was one of two Englishmen in the Experience, the group that catapulted Hendrix to fame in the late 1960s.

Along with the bassist Noel Redding, who died in 2003, Mitchell was recruited in a rush in the fall of 1966, after the journeyman Hendrix had been discovered in a New York club and whisked to London by Chas Chandler of the Animals…

The Jimi Hendrix Experience released three albums: "Are You Experienced" (1967), "Axis: Bold as Love" (1967) and "Electric Ladyland" (1968). Mitchell continued to play with Hendrix until his death in 1970, and later played in the band Ramatam.

Born John Mitchell in London, he worked as a child actor, appearing in the BBC television show "Jennings at School."

After Hendrix died, Mitchell worked with the producer Eddie Kramer in completing the albums "The Cry of Love" and "Rainbow Bridge," and he long worked with Experience Hendrix, the company founded by Hendrix's father, in promulgating the Hendrix legend.

Mitch Mitchell, who was mostly self-taught, in often cited as one of the top three British drummers of the 1960s. He will be sadly missed.