Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

She's talked about it a few times over the years, and I think it's utterly fascinating, but Joni (perhaps instinctively) started gravitating toward using lots of suspended chords after Blue. Wayne Shorter pointed it out at first, that she was going from suspended chord to suspended chord, which wasn't typically "done"-- she herself had been calling those chords "chords of inquiry"

https://books.google.ca/books?id=eZegBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT128&lpg=PT128&dq=joni+mitchell+suspended+chords&source=bl&ots=zeA_YDnhfU&sig=-qj77TGFIl2rOzMbaxxqB2U9pwc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi80a2czIXaAhUB8mMKHX7FAPAQ6AEISzAE#v=onepage&q=joni%20mitchell%20suspended%20chords&f=false

She would later begin to associate this compositional choice with femininity, describing suspended chords as inherently feminine. From a 2014 interview in MacLean's:

Q: Laws you felt needed to be broken. For example, your use of suspended chords in songs—which you say men cannot wrap their heads around. Why?

A: Men need resolution and suspended chords keep things open-ended. You go to a man if you have a problem and he tries to solve it. You go to a girlfriend and she’ll pat you on the back and say, “Oh yeah, I get it.” She doesn’t try and come up with some stupid solution.

, but wonder what would have happened if she'd worked with Zawinul and Shorter, the WR core

she worked with shorter some, didn't she? he's on mingus, and i think they toured together a little, too.

whoa, that bit about suspended chords is fascinating, and I have to admit that I have had trouble "wrapping my head around" her compositional style, like I don't think I could imitate it, and it took me a long time to get used to it although now I love it so much.

xpost had totally forgotten Shorter's on Mingus, and never knew they played live, will look for that. Thanks!
Reminds me: this guy's got some good shows (inc. the often-designated-as-1966 Second Fret set, which might be/seems like prob. is '67, based on points made by some fans), also demos for Summer Lawns (these are the mp3s, but he has 'em in flacs too):
http://www.ousterhout.net/mp3/jm.html
Tons of other (gen. Joni-compatible) stuff too.

it took me 20+ years to internalize Joni's love of suspensions. it was worth it

there's definitely interesting stuff about shorter in the [wait for it i'm about to plug it again] yaffa biog

the unresolved suspensions also give a lot of the songs a sense of shifting or uncertain tonality, so it's sort of doubly ambiguous.

I really love discussions of the obscure feelings evoked by certain chords and cadences. My dream is that some day a music writer will reveal to me the secrets behind the rollercoaster of ambiguous emotions that is the Steely Dan "Glamor Profession" chord progression.

haha, I have actually thought about that before too, there's definitely a very particular mood evoked by that song, upbeat in a drug-induced way and slightly demented

every time i read about her use of suspended chords i think "oh yeah, of course, that's why so many joni records are bottomless"

"chords of inquiry" is the perfect name too i think bc they just sound like big question marks curving through the mix

OTM about Glamour Profession, particularly the descending chords under the first line of the chorus.

To me, it's like each chord change has this little emotional up or down that I can feel but can't quite name. It's very cinematic, music as montage.

I always think about how in Janie Runaway the chord that holds on the verse sounds very "almost ok," like a guy just trying to seem chill and normal and not at all perverted, but then he starts to have trouble containing his perverse excitement when the chord changes on "Who makes the traffic interesting"

Re: "Glamor Profession"-- I've never listened to it before, but I just listened to it now

If I were to guess, I think Mr. Dan is taking the piss, deliberately creating the most obfuscation-per-chord-move as possible. Right off the top, he's suspending a G over three different possibilities for "chords that contain a G"-- this was taught to me as being called a "mediant movement"? "common tone"? but who the fuck knows-- the idea is that a G is sustained through the first chord (am7) and the second chord (g-half-diminished-7 1st inv.) and the third chord (cm)-- note that the bass is rather hilariously ascending stepwise to make this really uncomfortable collection of chords go down easier-- this is the way that Brecht writes chord progressions.

Immediately I'm reminded of a similar "lol let's string together a tonne of ridiculously unrelated-or-only-somewhat-related chords and try and write a hook over top of it" and it's Blur's "Coffee And TV"-- maybe the "ambiguous emotions" Moodles is feeling are also felt in that song?

There's a lot of augmented chords here, there's a full on whole-tone slide down with them, lots of diminished chords and "let's just move this chord down a semitone ha ha ha" moves. idk there's nothing really going on here but "extreme chromaticism". Sounds like Brecht over a backbeat-- although Brecht is clevererer, he throws in some basic-bitch diatonic passages to soothe the ear once in a while, to make the bizarro moves really "count"

Pardonnez-moi I smoked weed and had "On Suicide" in my head and was typing "Brecht" but I meant "Weill" Jesus Christ how embarrassing

Sometimes I think Steely Dan sounds like music by dudes who learned all the jazz chords but none of the jazz chord progressions. In a good way.

i think they've themselves said they were rock/r&b but with 'subversive' jazz chords or something

They took me a while too, especially coming to them as a jazz guy and hearing they were "heavily jazz influenced" or something and then listening to them I was like "Huh, these guys sound like they've never heard jazz and just had it described to them."

Great points FGTI! I think it's all the augmented chords that give it this constant low-budget horror film monster reveal vibe, or perhaps it's soap opera shocking news.

I really love discussions of the obscure feelings evoked by certain chords and cadences. My dream is that some day a music writer will reveal to me the secrets behind the rollercoaster of ambiguous emotions that is the Steely Dan "Glamor Profession" chord progression.

I am a forever dilettante on this front but Glamour Profession is about the modulations right? there are a bunch of them, but they're not super-woozy, just enough to force you to adjust between verse & BR1 & BR2 & chorus

Jack and his radar
stalking the dread moray eel

I drove the Chrysler
Watched from the darkness while they danced

"these guys sound like they've never heard jazz and just had it described to them."

would probably check out a new band described this way

Sounds like a description of King Krule

accurate

Stevie, regarding that Yaffe biog, does it go into detail about the Morgellons disease?

Not huge detail, but there is some stuff on it

ok

is it... disconcerting?

It should be.

I’m most interested in the weird period after Hejira, eg Don Juan.

I love the way she sings “false alarm” in Amelia. Had that bit stuck in my head for days now.

me too!

more excited than I should be about Hejira coming in the post today. one of those records i've been meaning to buy for avout 20 years

There is a nice anecdote from Joni in a Jaco documentary currently on Netflix. She was instructing a different bassist to play a G, and the bassist refused, saying "that's not even in the chord," and she replied, "well it WILL be, once you PLAY it."

lol

Song for Sharon has got to be my favorite

me too, or hejira

Don Juan's is now my favourite album by her and I'll believe anything I want to.

Would love to read about that period.

I've been listening to Joni for a long time--these days I like Hejira. The most travel-burned record she did. Jaco was beyond great and this record may be his single finest performance overall (in the service of the greater good, of course the shit he plays on "Teen Town" and some of his solo stuff is amazing). I haven't listened to Court and Spark in many years, nor have I to For the Roses or any of her earlier records. I suspect I'd hear Court the way I view some Altman film now, Long Goodbye or California Split (or Ashby), as this kind of dated "very modern pop but with realist touches" sort of thing, the good old '70s that now seems a bit, a lot, too self-involved and mod-ish to really appreciate. Altman's plotting is for shit, Joni's "stretched out and mutated" song forms aren't as interesting as I once thought. Dunno. "Car on the Hill" always seemed great and "Same Situation" also. Hissing also seems problematic in a different way--once I was sooo impressed by her jazz chords, and watching some live footage of this material recently, wow, it's good, actually, but again, I don't think she does it as well as Becker and Fagen, and I prefer Joy of Cooking's more modest, homespun, but jazzy, music these days to Joni's, seems more direct and less hung up by its celebrity. "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" is great, though, and Hissing does have some great ideas. But is it also somewhat dated in the peculiar '70s manner of so many records, from Jon Lucien's to Caroline Peyton's to Phoebe Snow's to a zillion jazz-rock ensembles? I have no doubt she was great, but I'm partially responding to her celebrity, her beauty (Joni Mitchell, are you kidding, she is so beautiful), her fucking ego for that matter. Very impressive. Hejira is so influential--I'm listening to some acoustic Lee Ranaldo right now, and you know he loves that record, and it's so moving.

I never thought she was beautiful but i always found her voice so pure and clear and touching at the same time. When she sings i have to listen to what she sings, there are only very few singers where this happens to me. Usually i do not care for the words. She radiates an incredible authority and truthfulness for me. Does this make any sense?

I suspect I'd hear Court the way I view some Altman film now, Long Goodbye or California Split (or Ashby), as this kind of dated "very modern pop but with realist touches" sort of thing, the good old '70s that now seems a bit, a lot, too self-involved and mod-ish to really appreciate

????? ok man, imo it's a good record when you listen to it

her and becker & fagen were using similar ensembles toward entirely different ends, it's pretty apparent in the albums you haven't heard in many years

idek how to deal with sentences like "i never thought she was beautiful but i always found her voice so pure etc."

I never understood what was so great about Steely Dan, I heard them on the radio in the 70s and it was ok but it was still mainstream and slick and kind of over-produced. Joni Mitchell on the other hand I discovered later in the 80s by chance and she spoke to me. Hejira is about a million times more intimate and warm than anything by Steely Dan. Jaco's bass plus her voice were a marriage in heaven.

i would like to clarify that evaluating joni mitchell's looks in tandem with her music is some barely-coded misogyny (which eddhurt can't seem to get through a whole post without indulging in) and fuck off with that pls

Warmth and intimacy were never in steely dan's mission statement imo, but i love joni and the dan plenty for the different things they do

Sure is a lot of Steely talk on this thread and several others, but to anyone who wonders wtf, I'd say check out everything through Aja(the title track and several others, though they lost me about half way through).
As I said way upthread, always heard thee voice of experience delivering hope and foreboding, quest and unrest---didn't know about giving up the baby as a very young unwed (as we said then) with no money, or bust-up of the (subsequent) marriage, but she sounded like she'd been through stuff, plus the observational, unresolved stuff along the way, as she continued on (and this was the debut). Some romantic, even exotic phrases, with the tunings and all, but in that big dark space, which I pictured as an apartment without much furniture to absorb the sound, dark because utilities not included.
Striking difference--in tone, tempo, spareness--between originals and some early hit covers, esp. "Both Sides Now" and omg "Woodstock." Chirpier later w more AM radio ambitions of her own, but basically mostly okay.
Joy of Cooking! Right on.

So what's Gaucho? Chopped liver?

Never made it through that one.
xp And later on yeah the evidence of travel, and whatcha been reading Joni? "The Painted Word," prob some Didion.