Hejira: “Light years from a bunch of impersonators imitating the big hits”
MORE than sold out, it goes to show that York audiences have a good ear. Hejira provided a wonderful two-hour concert to celebrate the music of Joni Mitchell.
With six jazz musicians on stage, this was light years from a bunch of impersonators imitating the big hits. Instead, we were treated to sensitive re-workings of songs drawn mainly from Mitchell’s mid-late 1970s’ jazz period.
If that sounds rather dry, the musicians enthused the night with a good measure of warmth and good humour. The set list was superb, mixing the better-known songs alongside lesser-known gems, and thankfully not leaning too far into jazz fusion.
This masterclass in set construction was typical of the care and thought that Hejira bring to their performance. There were new arrangements (Hissing Of Summer Lawns), instrumentals (Pat Metheny’s Song For Bilbao the pick) and also The Last To Come Along from Hattie Whitehead’s slow-burning solo record, Bloom.
Of her peers, Mitchell perhaps caught the jazz bug the hardest. Unlike the only other contender, Tim Buckley, Mitchell managed to not lose her audience in the process (at least until the unfortunate Mingus).
Her most covered hit, the freewheeling Free Man In Paris, shows her conflicted relationship with the music industry (itself very ‘jazz’). Yet her ambivalence and flight inspired some of her very finest material.
No mean feat for Hejira to re-imagine. Fortunately, Hattie Whitehead has a voice that can stop hearts in the space of a bar, a stunning instrument that is the equal to Mitchell’s, best heard on A Case Of You or a contemplative take on Woodstock.
The story behind Mitchell’s Hejira would make a great road trip movie, as she drove cross-country with no driving licence and a couple of friends intent on kidnapping one of their children.
The trio of songs, Amelia, Pat’s Tune and Hejira, was the towering centrepiece of the night, to these ears the equal of the originals (take your pick from the choice offerings in the latest archive box set that covers this fertile period).
The way Hejira started with only Whitehead then gradually introduced the guitar (Pete Oxley), then bass clarinet (Ollie Weston), bass (Dave Jones, ably re-creating those Jaco Pastorius lead bass lines) and piano (Chris Eldred) was breathtaking. Indeed, a real feature of the concert was Oxley’s knack for introducing musicians to build the songs, with Song For Sharon another great example.
It wasn’t entirely flawless (although it was close) , the extra solos at the end of A Case Of You were unnecessary and even musicians of this calibre struggled to make a case for reappraising Mitchell’s 1980s’ work.
Bland good taste didn’t propel Mitchell to superstar levels in the ’80s (her spark didn’t return until 1998’s Taming The Tiger, no apologies necessary for that one) but the musicians did at least improve on Be Cool (from 1982’s lacklustre Wild Things Run Fast).
A wonderful night of music as the full moon shone beatifically overhead.
Review by Paul Rhodes
P.S. You can see the real thing, Joni Mitchell herself, in Paris this autumn (Casino de Paris, November 17).