Joni Mitchell
Mingus

An ambitious and intense album, which upon its release in 1979 made many old fans wrinkle their noses without winning over enough new ones and in fact sold much less than the previous albums.

Today, however, it is worth rediscovering this MINGUS with an open-minded listen, starting with the two tracks penned solely by Joni Mitchell, both words and music – «God Must Be A Boogie Man» and «The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey»: they are two acoustic songs with essential sounds, almost mocking – and in this sense very Mingus-like - the first with its insistent refrain (even though, what a boogie man is, I still don't know!); dark and haunting the second, closing with the howls of a distant wolf. So far, nothing particularly new: these two tracks could very well have been on the previous album, that “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” which, with the long suite «Paprika Plains», caught the attention of the good Charlie Mingus, inspiring the collaboration that led to this album.

Things change when the songs with Mitchell's lyrics and music composed by Mingus himself come into play. «A Chair In The Sky»; «Sweet Sucker Dance» and especially «The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines» for its rhythm and «Goodbye Pork Pie Hat» for the suggestive melody of the story, have something extra: in the orchestration, in the contributions of the supporting musicians (… and we're talking about people like Jaco Pastorius on bass; Herbie Hancock on electric piano and Wayne Shorter on soprano!) and in Joanie's vocals.

It may be a gamble, but in my opinion, in this unorthodox and in a certain sense incomplete collaboration between the great double bassist (and brilliant composer) and the restless folk-rock star looking for a career shift, there is probably the intuition of the former of a new path for jazz singing, at least for female performers, who in those years struggled to go beyond the standards and the protégés of Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan.

Be it as it may, and beyond the strictly musical result, which I find good but – due to its evident lack of cohesion – not excellent, this record remains a precious testament to the last months of the great Charlie's life: his voice joking with friends on his birthday and then a bizarre dialogue about his funeral compared to Duke Ellington's! Spoken fragments inserted between one piece and another that obviously do not help the album's "musical flow," but that still intrigue the enthusiast. All transcribed, as well as the song lyrics, which otherwise would be difficult to follow for a non-native speaker. And then there are the illustration paintings, as usual, the work of Mitchell herself, including the moving one on the back cover of the Maestro from behind on a wheelchair: a chair in the sky, just like the title of one of these songs.