Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock, Jazz, and Rock! (oh my)

Read a great article today on Salon.com entitled “Rock vs. Jazz” by Gary Kamiya. As you would expect from Salon: a well-penned, thoughtful piece — this time exploring the author’s love of both genres, sparked by Herbie Hancock’s recent grammy award for his tribute album to Joni Mitchell, River: The Joni Letters.

What I personally find amusing are the comparisons made between Rock and Jazz music, as if allegiances to a musical genres were a compulsory part of everyday life. Surely the invented antagonism sells papers, but as a music lover I must take exception. When you consider that both of these artists make music, not necessarily popular tunes per se, but actually craft works of art, its almost insulting to keep them in dead categories like Rock and Jazz.

Two of my favorite albums by Mitchell — “Blue” and “Mingus” may be claimed by rock critics as one of their own, but let’s be honest, listening to either can qualify as a transcendent experience if your ears and heart are open. Joni and Jaco Pastorious’s version of Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (Theme for Lester Young) is one example where the listener is transported to a place and time (The Village, New York City, the early days of be-bop, night) to actually partake in a living musical portrait. You can feel the tension, the excitement of the space where great Jazz virtuosos created music which was relevant and special, at a time when only a relative few were interested.

In my mind, Joni quietly asserts her own relevance, as one of the founders of modern American (North American, that is) music by placing herself inside Mingus’ tribute to his friend and mentor, Lester Young. She is there; she lives the experience: the struggle, both artistic and human, of a genius and a lover:

A bright star
In a dark age
When the bandstands had a thousand ways
Of refusing a black man admission

and simultaneously helps to liberate the artist — by telling his story, along with Mingus, and giving it to the world. I should think Herbie returns the favor by his grammy-award winning tribute to Joni. Here we have two artists, exploring and acknowledging a common thread of beauty, giving us both popular song and improvisation, their greatest gifts. I for one am thankful these gifts did not go unnoticed by the Academy.

Music, and life, are for lovers, or at least the adventurous. As many aficionados are quick to point out, up until the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, jazz was king in the U.S.A. and Louis Armstrong was showered with affection wherever he traveled. But that was then, and this is now — the jazz age has long passed us, its values fully assimilated into American life and easily available to all.

The same can be said of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Commercialism (and the corporate coffee shop) gives us every ounce of re-cycled melody that we crave — more than we can ever imagine or wish for, it seems. We lack nothing material, we believe, and yet whenever I hear Joni sing those lyrics,

For you and me
The sidewalk is a history book
And a circus

it awakens a deep longing for something that the modern world cannot provide, and only a song can. Thanks Joni. (You too Herbie).