Back in Cars week, in my Cadillac post, I mentioned that Joni Mitchell had taken a dive deep into the heart of jazz. Now, It's time to tell that story.
Joni Mitchell: The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines
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In the early part of her career, Joni Mitchell's music went from spare arrangements for voice and acoustic guitar or piano, to fuller arrangements. Throughout, she used harmonies that no one who liked folk music or pop had ever heard before. Many an amateur guitar player came close, when trying to play her songs, to giving up the instrument in despair, before they realized that Joni got those sounds by actually changing the tuning of her guitar. So it shouldn't have surprised anyone when David Crosby suggested that Joni try working with jazz musicians. After summing up the first part of her career with a live album, (Miles of Aisles), Joni gave it a shot.
Now I would guess that neither Crosby nor Mitchell knew any straight-ahead jazz players at that point, so her first experiments were done with Tom Scott and the LA Express. This was a group of LA studio musicians with jazz training who were paying the bills by playing on pop records; as a band, they were playing the kind of fusion jazz that I have described elsewhere as musical wallpaper. In combination with Joni Mitchell, however, the created two of her finest albums, Court and Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns.
Joni Mitchell has always had a great musical curiosity, and as she continued her exploration of jazz, she began to meet more musicians who could help point the way. From the sound of the album, I imagine that during the recording of Hejira, someone said to her, "Joni, if you want the bass to sound like Jaco Pastorius, why not get Jaco Pastorius?" And she did. By all accounts, they became great friends, and Pastorius was still around for the recording of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter.
So that was where things stood when a phone call came from out of the blue. Jazz legend Charles Mingus was dying, and he wanted Joni Mitchell to help him record his last album. After picking herself up from the floor, she agreed, and the resulting album was Mingus. Mitchell and Mingus worked against the clock to finish the album, but Charles Mingus died before it could be released. He did, however, get to hear demos of all the songs. After that experience, Mitchell apparently felt that she had gone as far as she could go with jazz. She summed up that part of her career with a live album, (Shadows and Light), and moved on. Sadly Jaco Pastorius also died around that same time.
"The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines" begins with a blast from the horn section, who then disappear. But fear not, they do reappear later, and the song does not work without them. There is also a solo soprano sax part, played by Wayne Shorter. Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius had worked together before, in a band you may have heard of called Weather Report. I have included their best known song here as a bonus track.
Weather Report: Birdland
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Submitted by Darius