I’ve blogged here before about the importance of jazz artists expanding the repertoire to avoid putting out the umpteenth version of a tune from the canon of jazz standards. As great as those songs are, they’ve been played so well, so many times, that it’s hard for a contemporary musician to outdo past recordings.
That’s why I was so happy that Herbie Hancock hatched his project of jazz interpretations of the music of Joni Mitchell. Featuring legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter, the album includes guest vocals from Norah Jones, Corrinne Bailey Rae, Tina Turner, Leonard Cohen, Luciana Souza, and Mitchell herself. And in a real surprise, the album became the first jazz album since Getz/Gilberto in 1964 to win the Grammy for Album of the Year. Sorry Kanye and Vince Gill! Even though a Grammy has about as much artistic credibility as the Award for Outstanding Achivement in the Field of Excellence that Monty Burns gave Homer Simpson, it definitely gives the album a huge amount of exposure and open-minded listens from people far beyond the Downbeat crowd.
And the album deserves it. While more accurately described as a pop record with jazz touches, in that the vocalists anchor tunes, and the instrumentalists don’t push the formal boundaries of Mitchell’s songs, the performances are lush and elegant. The vocalists, Turner in particular, show us once again how thoughtful a lyricist Mitchell is: a hip, acerbic channeler of her disaffection into lines at once sensitive, tough, and revealing. And both Hancock and Shorter remind us that they’re not above pop music (Hancock’s "Rockit" was an early rap hit, back when the music was still called "rap"; you hear Shorter’s saxophone on Don Henley’s "The End of the Innocence" and Steely Dan’s "Aja").
The one major limitation is that the music doesn’t push past what you might call the "Starbucks barrier" — all of the tunes are slow or mid-tempo, and don’t express anything surprising or jarring enough to make you look up from your venti latte. And I don’t mean that as a killer diss — I generally like the music at Starbucks — it’s merely to say that part of the appeal to Grammy voters is that it’s not too challenging. Caveat made, Hancock and Co. deserve hearty congratulations for eluding the smooth jazz pitfall while simultaneously bringing pop material into the jazz big tent so sorely in need of expansion.
Accidental Blogger 
3 responses to “Herbie’s Big Win (Andrew)”
I think I’ve heard that album somewhere before… lovely review, m’dear.
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Nor was Joni Mitchell above jazz. Didn’t Jaco Pastorius play on at least one of her records, perhaps the Mingus tribute? I had no idea Hancock and Shorter played on “Aja,” but lately I’ve been considering that we have Steely Dan to thank for the state of pop music today, for better or worse. Their specialty was understated, mildly cerebral, yet well executed pop. Today we have everybody from R.E.M. (blech!) to David Byrne (b-l-e-c-h!!!) to Tortoise (yawn) to you-name-the-band who wants to be perceived as too cool to actually make an effort to rock…and I think they’re trying to channel Becker and Fagen. But then maybe Becker and Fagen were hoping to channel Burt Bacharach.
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Dean, you’re totally right about Joni and jazz – Jaco, Herbie, and Wayne were all performers on her 1978 collaboration with Charles Mingus simply entitled “Mingus,” and Jaco was also on 1975’s “Hejira.” Her backup bands also included some lesser-known but also-top-notch jazz players like Larry Carlton, Victor Feldman, and Don Alias. (Although I should clarify it was only Wayne on “Aja,” not Herbie too).
As for the persistence of Steely Dan, yes, I think you’re absolutely right that a lot of singer-songwriters are trying to channel B&F. Particularly among Starbucks faves like Norah Jones, John Mayer, Lizz Wright, and Corrine Bailey Rae — and I think it’s no accident that Jones and Rae sound unusually good singing Mitchell’s material — the world-weariness and humor of her lyrics stave off blandness.
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