“I Felt a Kind of Sweet Giddiness When I Met Mingus.”
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LONDON a MEMPHIS a EL PORTAL APRIL 2016 Issue 269 FEATURES 40 TRACEY THORN TheEverythingButTheGirl singer speaks to Andrew Male aboutthehighsandlowsoflife as an indie icon, and her new career as an acclaimed author. 46 FIELD MUSIC After12yearsofDIYjazz-pop- soul,andaheartyendorsement fromPrince,istheworldfinally ready for the Brewis Brothers? Ben Myers find out. 50 DAVE DAVIES TheyoungestKinkbrother takesMarkPaytressona journeyintohisremarkable musicalpast,andapresent world of psychic magick and extraterrestrials. 58 MICHAEL CHAPMAN Celebrating 50 years on the road, the hard-as-nails Yorkshire singer-songwriter givesBenThompsonamusical survival masterclass. 62 JONI MITCHELL Howdida’60sacousticfolkicon reinvent herself and confound her critics in the 1970s? David Frickewatchesthechanges. COVER STORY 70 IGGY POP On the eveofhisfarewellfrommusic, Mr James Osterberg speaks to KeithCameronabout50years on the rock’n’roll front line. Plus: Swan-song collaborators Josh Homme, Matt Helders andDeanFertitadiscussthe method and madness of Iggy old and new. “I felt a kind of sweet giddiness whenImetMingus.” JONIMITCHELLLOOKSBACKONTHE LIBERATIONOFHERJAZZYEARS.P62 Henry Diltz MOJO 3 Desert blooms: Joni Mitchell takes the air outside Las Vegas, Nevada, May 1978. MOJO 63 AN DOWN THE BLOCK OUTSIDE THE BAKED POTATO ON TUESDAY 3. Named after the main dish on the menu, the small, venerable Los Angeles jazz d by pianist Don Randi in 1970 – hosted a popular residency by a combo of top, ers who also happened to be among the busiest session musicians in town. The r, saxophonist Tom Scott, made records with John Coltrane’s producer Bob Thiele ing business in TV and movie scores. But the other cats were his equals in resumé. Sample was a founding member of hard-bop-turned-R&B stars The Crusaders; Bennett grew up in the bebop era and worked with singers Peggy Lee and Ella ummer John Guerin played with Thelonious Monk, Lou Rawls and Linda Ronstadt late line-up of The Byrds. He and Bennett were the backbeat on Frank Zappa’s ental smash, Hot Rats. fun of getting out of the studio,” says gui- unhurried swing and incisive o was in The Crusaders at the time and flourishes, in turn, illuminated fun after a previous guitarist didn’t work Mitchell’s reflective language in out. “ e never rehearsed. We just jammed.” Free Man In Paris, an affection- Things got more serious after Scott – who had played wood- ate portrait of her label boss and winds on Joni Mitchell’s latest album, For The Roses – invited the friend David Geffen, and the Canadian-born singer-songwriter to see the band, dubbed the L.A. swooning hit single Help Me, a Express. Mitchell’s early records – the largely acoustic quartet of clear reference to the singer’s 1968’s Song To A Seagull, ’69’s Clouds, ’70’s Ladies Of The new ecstasy with Guerin. Canyon and Blue the following year – made her a folk icon, a Court And Spark – which end- regal angel of tenderly frank, romantic confession. But the for- ed with Twisted, a cover from mer Roberta Joan Anderson knew a few things about jazz too. that Lambert, Hendricks & Ross album She heard Miles Davis’s Sketches Of Spain as a teenager in Sas- – marked the start of Mitchell’s most katoon and was especially knocked out, at a party, by The Hot- provocative era on record, an adven- test New Group In Jazz, a 1962 LP by the vocal trio Lambert, ture in harmonic exploration, textural Hendricks & Ross. “I’ve always considered that album to be dynamics and interior complexity of- my Beatles,” Mitchell told Downbeat’s Leonard Feather in ten referred to as her ‘jazz years’. She 1979, “because I learned every song off it.” worked with members of the L.A. Ex- At the Baked Potato, Mitchell met the L.A. Express and press across three more albums – asked the band to play on her next record, Court And Spark. 1975’s The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Mitchell and her engineer Henry Lewy ’76’s Hejira and the 1977 double long- “booked four or five days with us” at A&M player, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter – Studios, Carlton says, “but it worked so well while forging a profound, creative bond with that they just committed to it.” the prodigious bassist Jaco Pastorius, an as- Mitchell – 29, a divorceé and previously sociation that peaked on 1979’s Mingus, linked romantically with Graham Nash and Mitchell’s homage to the titanic jazz bassist James Taylor – also fell for Guerin, a hand- Charles Mingus. some charmer in his mid-thirties. Bennett is blunt in his summation of “Joni loved the band, but she really loved Mitchell as a jazz singer. “It was fantastic to the drummer,” Bennett cracks fondly. “They work with Peggy and Ella,” he says, “but Jo- were a hit right away.” ni’s voice – there was nothing to match it.” So was Court And Spark, which was finished Former Weather Report drummer Peter Er- in late ’73, issued in January, 1974 and went skine, who played on Mingus, says he heard to Number 2 in Billboard, selling “ b ning essence, the white heat of phos- million copies. It was Mitchell’s horus” in Mitchell’s work, especially first album with a working band with Pastorius. But guitarist Robben (guests included Crusaders bassist ord – who joined the L.A. Express for Wilton Felder and The Band’s he 1974 tour that became the live al- Robbie Robertson), and the bond um, Miles Of Aisles, and played on The was plain in the title song’s firm Hissing Of Summer Lawns and Hejira – groove and the rhythmic, choral aims Mitchell drew from “countless buoyancy of Raised On Robbery. esources” including visual arts and Af- Mitchell’s run-on melodies and can music, notably in Hissing’s The eccentric guitar tunings perplexed ungle Line, a densely lyrical vision of the L.A. Express at first. rench painter Henri Rousseau set to “Joe and I were looking at each oog and a proto-sampling loop of other,” Bennett says, “like, ‘This is urundi drumming. “It was like she different. Is it going to work?’” as making movies,” says Ford. However, the musicians were Mitchell’s hard turn from easily versatile enough to relish and dored balladry tested her audience – master the challenge. Mitchell’s he Hissing Of Summer Lawns was her writing “was very sophisticated st Top 10 album in the US – and di- harmonically,” Carlton says, “yet ded critics. She was voted 1975’s Top so accessible.” The L.A. Express’s azz and Pop Vocalist by Playboy, Henry Diltz, Getty Images 64 MOJO Car on a hill: Joni takes the wheel, October 1974; (opposite) Mitchell and L.A. Express drummer and more, John Guerin; (insets) her ’74 highlight Court And Spark and the inspirational Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. “This is different. Is it going to work?”: Joni with The L.A. Express in October ’74 (from left) Tom Scott, Max Bennett, Robben Ford, Larry Nash, Guerin and Mitchell; (below) more ’70s classics. ¢ while Rolling Stone dismissed The “She looked like a gazelle, glorious and Hissing… as “substantial literature . set to magical,” Ford says brightly. “I had been insubstantial music” and complained that on scuffling, and this was a huge step up on every Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter Mitchell had level – the company I was keeping, the music “chosen to abandon melody at a time when I was making.” Ford worked from charts, she needs it most urgently.” building on Carlton’s parts for Court And But her experimental ardour resonated Spark. But the “harmonic environment with subsequent generations: On A Tribute created by her alternate tunings was a differ- To Joni Mitchell, a 2007 compilation, Björk, ent language and very demanding.” Elvis Costello, Sufjan Stevens, k.d. lang and Carlton – who declined to tour, choosing jazz pianist Brad Mehldau all covered songs to stay in the studio and stick with The from this period. “I learned Hejira and Don Crusaders – says the members of The L.A. Juan’s Reckless Daughter by heart when I was Express mostly arranged their own parts on 15,” Björk told me last year. “She was creat- Court And Spark, encouraged by Mitchell. ing her own universe; she wasn’t a guest in “But we were servants to the artist and a man’s world.” song,” he adds, citing the rattled sigh of his Mitchell – now 72 and in seclusion, recov- guitar in the opening of Help Me. “It’s just a ering from a brain aneurysm last spring – was G major 7th chord on a down beat, but it sets up her adamant in her course when she spoke to Roll- next line perfectly. That’s all I had to play in that spot.” ing Stone in 1979. “Youhave two choices,” she Mitchell, working closely with Lewy, was a decisive told Cameron Crowe. People will “crucify you leader too. The L.A. Express cut their tracks for Court for staying the same. If you change, they’re And Spark live in the studio, often with Mitchell in the going to crucify you for changing. But staying vocal booth. But when Carlton heard Free Man In the same is boring. And change is interesting. Paris on the album, he discovered a second, over- “I’d rather be crucified,” she declared, dubbed guitarist, Jose Feliciano, in the final mix. “I “for changing.” can hear the roughness in his playing,” Carl- ton says. “She added his licks back there to OBBEN FORD WAS 22 AND ABOUT put some edge on a mood.” to quit his job – playing guitar for blues singer “I do have this reputation for being a seri- Jimmy Witherspoon – when Tom Scott called his ous person,” Mitchell admitted to Cameron manager’s office in January 1974 with an offer to go on Crowe.