•
Rating:
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.
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 EverardBereguad
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.
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.
