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Among many things that happened on Earth in 1977—good, bad, important, or otherwise—the notes of "Paprika Plains," a piece around which the album "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" by Joni Mitchell revolved, also reached the eardrums of jazz musician Charles Mingus (hereinafter simply referred to as the "great Jazz musician"), and around these parts, they made a good impression to the point that he, the great Jazz musician indeed, was inspired to work with the blond Canadian angel.
The definitive form of the project their collaboration resulted in consisted of six melodies put on the table by the great Jazz musician, while Joni Mitchell was supposed to add lyrics and voice. Before an album containing the result of their work was realized, the great jazz musician decided to depart from this world, leaving it to lick the wounds caused by such a loss, and leaving her, Joni Mitchell, grappling with important decisions yet to be made. Among these was the issue regarding the type of instrumentation to use for the album. She knew that the great jazz musician's desire was for entirely acoustic instrumentation, and for this purpose, she had been provided with a band with top-notch credentials, with whom some versions of certain pieces had already been realized (I don't know where they ended up, if anyone knows, let me know). She felt the need to respect this desire but was also convinced of her own ideas, which went in another direction, that of using electric bass and piano. She got out of the stalemate following the great jazz musician's death by going her own way, bringing along a good part of the Weather Report of that period (Zawinul was missing), Herbie Hancock to take care of the piano parts, and Don Alias for the percussions. She would handle the guitar parts. Thus, an irreplicable color palette was completed, with which in 1979 the album in question was finally realized.
Inside it ended up four pieces resulting from that collaboration, and she added two others, entirely her own contribution. Six pieces in total, interspersed with recordings of some moments of the great jazz musician's daily life and some of his statements.
Most of the pieces at first seem to have a dilated rhythm. In reality, they are rhythmic enigmas that only the instrumentalists can unravel. The baton of who is responsible for rhythm passes from one instrument to another during the course of a single piece, while whoever is freed goes wherever they please. The only one who skips a turn because he really doesn't want to do that job is the sax, Shorter is a painter, and you can't ask painters to also make the canvas. During sudden accelerations, the bass creates whirlpools from which fantastic piano chromatisms and sax strokes escape in turns. The listener doesn't need to understand anything but should simply surrender to the current, whatever happens.
Joni Mitchell's voice flies over the music with daring evolutions like an elusive butterfly, without falling into the rhythmic traps played by the instruments.
Among these, the one most prominently featured is the bass.
It is a chameleon-like and elusive bass that changes direction with each harmonic. In moments when it is free from rhythmic commitments, it almost becomes a human voice, in the manner of ‘A Remark You Made', ready to steal moments of protagonism from the lead voice.
Pastorius does his part without altering his style in the slightest to try to approach that of the great jazz musician. He is Pastorius without ifs and buts. I'm not interested in boasting knowledge I don't have; for now, Mingus's music is practically uncharted territory for me. I'll make up for it, but for the moment, I can't say if the rendering of the music could have been better with the sound imagined by the great jazz musician.
The two pieces written entirely by Joni Mitchell deserve their own discussion.
"The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines," differs from the rest in terms of rhythm as it is an uptempo from beginning to end. For those who are fans of the sound of the bass, there's plenty to enjoy.
‘The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey' in my opinion seems out of context for various reasons. First of all, it's not a true Jazz piece, and then it is the only track with a stripped-down instrumentation, mostly just guitar, occasional percussion, and wolves at the end. It seems to be an attempt to evolve the conversation started on the previous album with the track ‘The Silky Veils of Ardor', and in the end, it doesn't seem to match up.
The lyrics. Three tracks are about the great Jazz musician, there are two brief portraits of him, and a dedication to saxophonist Lester Young, his friend and musical partner. There's the confessional piece à la Joni Mitchell (Sweet Sucker Dance), there's the piece on the shadows of the human soul (The Wolf ...), and finally, a piece that talks about a gambler (the owner of a dry cleaner from Des Moines) who with slot machines seems to have a touch similar to what the deaf, dumb, and blind kid had with the pinball.
Mine is a five but with a 'but'. Five because everything is perfect (apart from The Wolf ....), the sounds are fantastic, the pieces are fantastic, she is fantastic, perfect, beautiful, etc. Five because there is also the title to be elected among the most beautiful in history (God Must Be a Boogie Man). ‘Five but' because I have the sensation (very personal, I realize) that it lacks a bit of soul. If you listen to Blue first and then this, you can understand what I mean.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
05 The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey (06:33)
Of the darkness in men's minds
What can you say
That wasn't marked by history
Or the T.V. news today
He gets away with murder
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes
His grandpa loved an empire
His sister loved a thief
And lindsey loved the ways of darkness
Beyond belief
Girls in chilly blouses
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes
The cops don't seem to care
For derelicts or ladies of the night
They're weeds for yanking out of sight
If you're smart or rich or lucky
Maybe you'll beat the laws of man
But the inner laws of spirit
And the outer laws of nature
No man can
No--no man can
There lives a wolf in Lindsey
That raids and runs
Through the hills of Hollywood
And the downtown slums
He gets away with murder
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes
08 Coin in the Pocket (Rap) (00:11)
Charles: "I never hit too, too hard, uh, y'know. All my life, uh y'know, just everything I touched, turned to gold. I'm not, I'm not rich but, y'know, I've always had a few, some dollars in my pockets"
09 The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines (03:22)
words by Joni Mitchell
music by Charles Mingus
I'm down to a roll of dimes
I'm stalking the slot that's hot
I keep hearing bells all around me
Jingling in the lucky jackpots
They keep you tantalized
They keep you reaching for your wallet
Here in fools' paradise!
I talked to a cat from Des Moines
He said he ran a cleaning plant
That cat was clanking with coin
Well, he must have had a genie in a lamp
'Cause every time--I dropped a dime--I blew it
He kept ringing bells
Nothing to it!
He got three oranges
Three lemons
Three cherries
Three plums
I'm losing my taste for fruit
Watching the dry cleaner do it
Like Midas in a polyester suit
It's all luck!
It's just luck!
You get a little lucky and you make a little money!
I followed him down the strip
He picked out a booth at Circus Circus
Where the cowgirls fill the room
With their big balloons
The Cleaner was pitching with purpose!
He had Dinos and Pooh Bears
And lions--pink and blue there
He couldn't lose there!
Des Moines was stacking the chips
Raking off the tables
Ringing the bandit's bells
This is a story that's a drag to tell
(In some ways)
Since I lost every dime
I laid on the line
But the cleaner from Des Moines
Could put a coin
In the door of a John
And get twenty for one
It's just luck!
11 Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (05:36)
When Charlie speaks of Lester
You know someone great has gone
The sweetest swinging music man
Had a Porkie Pig hat on
A bright star
In a dark age
When the bandstands had a thousand ways
Of refusing a black man admission
Black musician
In those days they put him in an
Underdog position
Cellars and chittlins'
When Lester took him a wife
Arm and arm went black and white
And some saw red
And drove them from their hotel bed
Love is never easy
It's short of the hope we have for happiness
Bright and sweet
Love is never easy street!
Now we are black and white
Embracing out in the lunatic New York night
It's very unlikely we'll be driven out of town
Or be hung in a tree
That's unlikely!
Tonight these crowds
Are happy and loud
Children are up dancing in the streets
In the sticky middle of the night
Summer serenade
Of taxi horns and fun arcades
Where right or wrong
Under neon
Every feeling goes on!
For you and me
The sidewalk is a history book
And a circus
Dangerous clowns
Balancing dreadful and wonderful perceptions
They have been handed
Day by day
Generations on down
We came up from the subway
On the music midnight makes
To Charlie's bass and Lester's saxophone
In taxi horns and brakes
Now Charlie's down in Mexico
With the healers
So the sidewalk leads us with music
To two little dancers
Dancing outside a black bar
There's a sign up on the awning
It says "Pork Pie Hat Bar"
And there's black babies dancing...
Tonight!
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Other reviews
By DBMsonic1
This record remains a precious testament to the last months of the great Charlie’s life.
In this unorthodox and in a certain sense incomplete collaboration, there is probably the intuition of a new path for jazz singing.
