Herbie Hancock's Joni Mitchell Project

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstar....html?id=0bb0228d-1564-4e16-bf89-2ecd2a832081

Jazz legend Herbie Hancock is looking forward to coming to Joni Mitchell's hometown.

The man who has created more than 50 albums in a 45-year career has now turned his attention to Saskatoon's most famous daughter, and her music.

"My next record, which is on Verve Records, is really kind of a portrait of Joni Mitchell and her life," Hancock volunteered in a recent interview.

Hancock is not the only luminary on this CD, which is expected to come out in October. Mitchell herself sings on one of the tracks, as do Norah Jones, Tina Turner and Corinne Bailey Rae. All but two of the songs were written by Mitchell.

"Leonard Cohen is doing a spoken word (version) one of Joni's songs, and I'm accompanying with improvised accompaniment," added Hancock.

"Some of the pieces we are doing as instrumentals. The basic group of instrumentalists (includes) Wayne Shorter playing saxophone, and he's worked with Joni a lot on her records." Dave Holland joins in on bass, and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums.

"What we've focused on was the lyrics, and the poetry of the lyrics that Joni wrote," said Hancock. "We played impressions of her melodies. I'm really happy with the way it's turning out."

Because the singers are far-flung, most of the vocals have to be added over the musical tracks. Tina Turner, for instance, is in Switzerland, and Corinne Bailey Rae in England. Norah Jones has already recorded her track.

"And Joni has been really busy," added Hancock. "She's finishing up a record of her own. She went back into the recording studio."


From Joni's website:

http://jonimitchell.com/news/index.cfm

More news on Herbie Hancock's upcoming project, which will be a tribute to Joni's music and artistry; Joni will be contributing vocals on "In My Solitude", and such notables as Norah Jones, Tina Turner and British soul singer Corrine Bailey Rae will be covering Joni selections on the disc. Also featured on the album will be a version of one of Joni's favorite compositions, "Nefertiti" by her close friend and musical partner Wayne Shorter. According to Herbie himself, Joni was challenged to write lyrics and sing on the track (as she previously did with the music of Charles Mingus) but was unable to do so as she is working to complete her own album, "Shine".

 

Interesting project.

I'm sort of glad Joni didn't have time to write lyrics or sing on Wayne Shorter's "Nefertiti". That song is so cool it doesn't need vocals.

 

That's excellent......... I saw Joni Mitchell at the Greek Theater in May 1979 with Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Don Alias, and Tony Williams. Great show. Saw her again about a year later with Jaco, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Michael Brecker and Don Alias on Drums. Another great show.

 

Jeebus, I hope she isn't sick. Maybe I'm just morbid, but c'mon, the woman has been a smoker since she was nine. No, nothing here indicates it, but I'm such a fan I think of this.

 

Yes, you are!

Hopefully, as he did on "Summertime" and "The Man I Love" from his 1998 album Gershwin's World, Hancock will be able to coax another gem of a performance out of Joni. Maybe I'm wishing for too much, considering that nine more years worth of cigarettes have been inhaled, but we'll see...

 

all i can say is "a new joni album"

i really thought we'd never see/hear it.

renny

 

It sounds like heaven! I can't wait to hear it.

As for Joni's current voice... I got hold of a short clip of the song Shine (from the BBC interview earlier this year) and she sounds pretty much like she did at the time of Travelogue (to my ears, anyway). Of course, this is only just a tiny excerpt from just one song so I guess that doesn't say much, who knows what the other tracks will be like. I'm really looking forward to it.

Richard.

 

Doesn't a piece of music need human vocals to qualify as a "song?" I've always thought of a "song" as something that involves a human voice "singing" (generally, singing lyrics or at least "scatting").

 

then, according to that criteria, all jazz musical pieces are not songs.

what are they? musical compositions?

i am confused by your staterment.

 

With all due respect, a very silly statement. Is an instrumental not a song? What is it? A jellyfish?

 

I love how her voice is so "in the room" on the 5.1 SACD of that album. I'd instantly buy this new one if it's an SACD, but I think it's wishful thinking.

 

I don't think it's silly. Doesn't the word "song" suggest that it contains lyrics that are to be "sung?" An instrumental, to me, is an instrumental piece of music. Is a movement of a Mozart piano sonata a "song?"

There are many dictionary definitions of the word "song," of which the following (Random House College Dictionary, 1980 revision), is typical:

song: 1. a short metrical composition intended or adapted for singing, esp. one in rhymed stanzas; a lyric; a ballad. 2. a musical piece adapted for singing or simulating a piece to be sung. 3. poetical composition; poetry. 4. the art or act of singing; vocal music. 5. something that is sung. 6. the musical or tuneful sounds produced by certain birds, insects, etc.

 

I guess if you want to get very technical about things. But the average music lover will simply say "I like that song".

"Irregardless" of what the dictionary says.

 

No, in my opinion, jazz musical pieces that do not involve "singing" are not "songs." They are "jazz musical pieces" or "compositions," as you suggest, or simply "tunes." It may be easier and more convenient to call them "songs" but they are not "songs" in the meaning of that word.

 

This music "board" isn't made of wood either!

 

I don't know why the notion of the correct usage of words in their proper sense qualifies as "very technical," much less "silly," a term you used earlier.

 

Completely agree, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a MC SACD too

 

We're just here in a casual setting discussing music. Maybe an English Major forum would be more up your alley.

 

That's possible. There must be a "pet peeves" thread in the Off Topic section, and I could list incorrect use of the word "song" as one of mine.

Actually, in addition to learning things about music, recordings, and all of that, I have through this forum learned a lot of other useful things, sometimes not intended by posters. Even a "casual setting" can be a source for continued learning.

As to the topic at hand, I am all for collaborations between musicians who for the most part operate in different areas and styles of music, such as Hancock and Mitchell.

 

Cool, a very exciting forthcoming release to look forward to.

 

Herbie's album is coming out the same day as Joni's. I'm not really a fan of Norah Jones, but I'm curious to hear her take on "Court and Spark."

So much interesting stuff being released in the second half of 2007...

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003619877

Herbie Hancock Unseals 'Letters' To Joni

Herbie Hancock dives into the Joni Mitchell songbook on his new album, "River: The Joni Letters," due Sept. 25 via Verve. Mitchell herself sings on a new version of "The Tea Leaf Prophecy," while Tina Turner takes the mic for "Edith and the Kingpin."

Other guests include Leonard Cohen on "The Jungle Line," Norah Jones on "Court and Spark," Corinne Bailey Rae on "River" and Luciana Souza on "Amelia." Hancock is flanked on the albums by such veteran musicians as Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Vinnie Colaiuta and Lionel Loueke.

Hancock and Mitchell previously worked together on the latter's 1979 album, "Mingus," on which Shorter also played. The new project also includes Shorter's "Nefertiti" and the Duke Ellington standard "Solitude."

As previously reported, Mitchell will release her Hear Music debut, "Shine," on the same day as "River: The Joni Letters."

 

According to Hancock's website, Larry Klein was involved with this album. Personally, I think he's been around enough Joni albums already. Hopefully, he stayed away from Shine.

For "River", Hancock enlisted producer/arranger/bassist Larry Klein (Mitchell's long-time producer and creative partner), to help him go deeply into Mitchell's body of work to select songs that Hancock and Klein could adapt to a genre-less and conversational musical approach, while trying
to portray the breadth of Mitchell's gift as a musician and writer.

To add another dimension to their picture of Mitchell's musical world, they also included two compositions that were important to her musical development, Wayne Shorter's asymmetrical masterpiece "Nefertiti", first recorded by Hancock and Shorter on Miles Davis' classic album of the
same name, and Duke Ellington's prescient standard "Solitude".

Hancock and Klein worked for months, carefully reading through Joni's lyrics and music, eventually paring their list down to thirteen songs that they hoped comprised a panoramic view of the poet's work. They then assembled a group of the top musicians in the world, including the incomparable Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor sax, the brilliant bassist and composer Dave Holland, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (a recent member of Hancock's band as well as having played extensively with Mitchell and Sting), and Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke, also a member of Hancock's band.

They went on to craft arrangements for songs like the often recorded "Both Sides Now", and "Sweet Bird" (from Mitchell's overlooked classic, "The Hissing of Summer Lawns") that transformed the songs into lyrical and elegant instrumental tone poems, devoid of the trappings of conventional jazz records. "We wanted to create a new vocabulary, a new way of speaking in a musical sense," Hancock says. Klein adds, "we used the words to guide us. All of the music emanated from the poetry."

 

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/music/528076,SHO-Sunday-herbie26.article

When you're a musician, there's probably no greater tribute than your contemporaries banding together to record your songbook. So it goes for Joni Mitchell, thanks to close pal Herbie Hancock, who is about to release "River: The Joni Letters,'' (Verve) on Sept. 25. The disc pays homage to some of Mitchell's most compelling work, if not necessarily her most famous.

The two music icons have been "compadres," Hancock says, for decades, and had worked together previously on several projects, including Mitchell's 1979 album "Mingus," a tribute to jazz great Charlie Mingus.

On the new album, Mitchell guest stars on a special version of "The Tea Leaf Prophecy," while other notables include Tina Turner on "Edith and the Kingpin," Norah Jones on "Court and Spark" and Corinne Bailey Rae on "River."

Hancock headlines "An Evening with Herbie Hancock" at Symphony Center on Thursday night to officially kick off this year's Chicago Jazz Festival festivities. The iconic pianist spoke to the Sun-Times about his new album.

Q. Why did you decide to record an album of Joni Mitchell music?

A. I feel like I'm discovering her for the very first time. I've known her since the "Mingus" project all those years ago. I've been on a couple of her records, she's been on a couple of mine [including "Gershwin's World"], and in between we've performed on the same bill for several concerts for famine relief efforts and other social causes. And I've long admired her as an incredible, multidimensional artist. She's also a Renaissance woman. She just finished composing a ballet. She's a wonderful painter, an incredible poet.
But when she first became famous, I had tunnel vision. I was so into jazz that I wasn't paying attention to folk music or pop music, so it took me a while to appreciate her lyrics. So for the first time, I got to delve into the poetry of her lyrics with this album project.


Q. What is it about Mitchell's lyrics that entrances you so?

A. She talks the way she writes. I'm amazed at her writing talent. I looked at her [song] catalog, looked at words she had written when she was 20. I'd read two phrases and then stop because what she had written was so rich with imagery and metaphors. How was it possible that a person that young could write like that?


Q. What was her reaction when she found out about your album project?

A. She didn't know I was gonna be doing this record, actually, for the longest time. I finally let her know when I was invited to Toronto to present her with the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame award.


Q. What still surprises you about Joni Mitchell the songwriter?

A. Well, when I was up there in Toronto, she invited a bunch of us music types back to her hotel suite and we were all there just partying and having a good time. And she had this room with a hi-fi system and she just up and says, "Here's what I've been working on." And she played these tracks from her upcoming album. She's on there doing all these tracks with keyboards and synthesizers. She's fallen in love with the synth sound and she's doing it all herself, accompanied by a drummer and bassist. And as far as I know, the guitar work is all her own, too. She is just this unique artist. She's fearless about music.


Q. How did you did get her to sing on "Tea Leaf Prophecy"?

A. Joni's mother passed away in January, and we thought the song would really resonate with Joni. It's this wonderful story about her mom who went to a fortune-teller who told her she would fall in love and be married in a month. Well, this soldier comes home from WWII on two weeks' furlough, meets Joni's mom, and two weeks later, they were married. That's all in the lyrics. And for the first time, Joni uses her mom's real first name because on the original recording, the woman's name is Molly McGee. On my album, Joni uses Mabel, her mom's name. That made the song even more special for all of us.


Q. How good has jazz been to you?

A. [Laughing] It's been fantastic to me. I wouldn't be able to play the music I played, going off into the directions I went off into if I didn't have jazz as a foundation.

 

really looking forward to this and the new Joni cd. glad they are coming out on the same day. Its a nice double feature so to speak.

These two with Joni's Starbucks cds where she picks her favorite songs from other artists will make for a nice random collection in the cd changer...

 

A reminder that the CD comes out this Tuesday. I ordered mine through Amazon, which is offering an "exclusive" version with two bonus tracks: "All I Want" and "A Case of You." Details here.