Mitchell Mixes with Mingus Jazz for Special Sound

by Joel McNally
Tacoma Tribune
June 1979

I have publicly confessed on any number of occasions that I don't understand jazz. I am proud of such a monumental person failing. But no one ever taught me the secret handshake.

Add to that the fact that in recent years Joni Mitchell has been getting more and more obscure to the point that she has nearly succeeded in achieving opaque.

I once sat down and tried to write everything I had learned from the music of Joni Mitchell. I got bogged down right after "Joni Mitchell writes long song."

When it was announced that both of those forces were coming together in an album collaboration between Ms. Mitchell and the late jazz great Charles Mingus, I expected the musical equivalent of the stuff Lamont Cranston used to cloud men's minds.

As it turns out, the new Joni Mitchell album, "Mingus" (Asylum), is an interesting experience even for a jazz illiterate.

Most of the songs are collaborations, with Joni's words set to Mingus' music. The two exceptions - songs that are 100 percent Mitchell - are in keeping with the dark tone of the rest of the album.

And it is dark. Mingus died last January as this project was taking shape. Joni writes that he heard and approved every song except "God Must Be A Boogie Man," which was written two days after his death.

Interlaced between the songs are snatches of noisy conversations with Mingus as he talks about his life and his death.

The album opens with a tape from a noisy, happy birthday party for Mingus - his 53rd or 54th, no one seems quite sure which. It closes with "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat."

In between, there are some long songs. This time there is little question about the nature of the point they are making. Especially when the wolves start howling.

That chilling accompaniment goes along with "The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey." The song examines the dark side of each of us as well as the evil in our collective society. The tone is set by the malevolent guitar of Ms. Mitchell.

Other songs are not as blunt, but they are no less cynical. "Sweet Sucker Dance" sadly describes life as pretense. "The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines" is one of life's few winners and he is a jerk, a "Midas in a polyester suit."

Joni Mitchell's voice wraps itself around those words and her guitar punctuates them.

Despite the anger and bitterness of Mingus' music, there are some lighter moments. The recorded conversations are worth it just to hear Mingus dare to shatter a myth about all black jazz and blues singers by allowing as how he "never had it too hard, you know."

"Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is a tribute to another jazz musician whose early career and racial battles paralleled those of Mingus. With the death of Mingus, it takes on a different shade of meaning.

In spite of myself, I found the style growing on me. Da doobie doobie, doobie brothers.