JONI MITCHELL – MINGUS LP – Nr MINT A1/B1 UK 1979 ORIG  JAZZ ROCK

Joni Mitchell – Mingus
(Asylum Records  1979   K53091)
Matrix No’s: A1/B1 STRAWBERRY EG – UK Pressing

Triplefold Sleeve in Nr MINT condition
– some slight wear to spine edge and a little light ringwear on back cover

Vinyl in Nr MINT/Excellent+ condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality apart from some light pops/crackles)

Roberta Joan “Joni” Mitchell, CC (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and painter. Rolling Stone called her “one of the greatest songwriters ever”, and AllMusic has stated, “When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century”.

Drawing from folk, pop, rock and jazz, Mitchell’s songs often reflect social and environmental ideals as well as her feelings about romance, confusion, disillusionment and joy.

Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in Saskatchewan and western Canada before busking in the streets and shoddy nightclubs of Toronto. In 1965, she moved to the United States and began touring. Some of her original songs (“Urge for Going”, “Chelsea Morning”, “Both Sides, Now”, “The Circle Game”) were covered by folk singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her debut album in 1968. Settling in Southern California, Mitchell, with popular songs like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock”, helped define an era and a generation. Her 1971 recording Blue was rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone‘s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, the highest entry by a female artist. Mitchell switched labels and began moving toward jazz rhythms by way of lush pop textures on 1974’s Court and Spark, her best-selling LP, featuring the radio hits “Help Me” and “Free Man in Paris”.

Around 1975 her vocal range began to shift from mezzo-soprano to more of a wide-ranging contralto. Her distinctive piano and open-tuned guitar compositions also grew more harmonically and rhythmically complex as she explored jazz, melding it with influences of rock and roll, R&B, classical music, and non-western beats. In the late 1970s, she began working closely with noted jazz musicians, among them Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, and Charles Mingus, who asked her to collaborate on his final recordings. She turned again toward pop, embraced electronic music, and engaged in political protest.

She is the sole producer credited on most of her albums, including all her work in the 1970s. A blunt critic of the music industry, she quit touring and released her 17th, and reportedly last, album of original songs in 2007.

With roots in visual art, Mitchell designed her own album covers. She describes herself as a “painter derailed by circumstance”.

Mingus is the tenth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, and a collaboration with jazz musician Charles Mingus. Recorded in the months before his death, it would be Mingus’s final musical project; the album is wholly dedicated to him.

The album is quite experimental, featuring minimalist jazz, overplucked, buzzing acoustic guitars, and even wolves howling through “The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey”. All of the lyrics are by Mitchell, while the music for four of the songs was composed by Mingus, three being new tunes, a fourth being his tribute to saxophonist Lester Young from his 1959 classic Mingus Ah Um, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, for which Mitchell wrote a set of lyrics.

As with the release preceding, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Mitchell hired personnel from jazz fusion group Weather Report, notably bassist Jaco Pastorius to play on the sessions. Mingus would also mark the first reunion of saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock in the studio since recording together on Shorter’s seminal Native Dancer album, featuring Milton Nascimento, released in September 1974.

The album is spliced with excerpts, which are labelled “(Rap)”, from recordings provided by Sue Graham Mingus, including a scat singing interplay between Joni and Mingus, and Charles and Sue arguing over his age at a birthday party. In “Funeral”, Mingus and others discuss how long he’ll live and what his funeral will be like. He refers to the Vedanta Society and asserts that “I’m going to cut Duke [Ellington]!”. “God Must Be a Boogie Man,” having taken shape two days after his death, was the only song Mingus was unable to hear. Mitchell suggests in the liner notes that Mingus would have found it hilarious.

The artwork features several paintings by Mitchell of Mingus. It peaked at #17 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Joni Mitchell, except where noted.

Personnel

• Joni Mitchell – guitar, vocals
• Jaco Pastorius – bass, horn arrangement on “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines”
• Wayne Shorter – soprano saxophone
• Herbie Hancock – electric piano
• Peter Erskine – drums
• Don Alias – congas
• Emil Richards – percussion