SAFARIS TO THE HEART OF ALL THAT JAZZ…

Joni Mitchel's biographer, Mark Scott mentions about Lyle Mays, who played Joni Mitchells' live album, Shadows and Light (1979).

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Nearly every write up of the 1979 tour gives 'Big Yellow Taxi' as the opener for each concert, followed by several songs selected from the 'Court and Spark' , 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns' and 'Hejira' albums. Joni took off her guitar while the band accompanied her performances of 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' and 'The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines'. Jaco Pastorius favored the crowds with an extended bass solo after 'Dry Cleaner' according to the write-up in the Vancouver Sun of the Pacific Coliseum show in Vancouver B.C. 'God Must Be a Boogie Man' rounded out the material from the 'Mingus' album. The Milwaukee Sentinel described “some excellent, expressionistic picking in an interlude between the songs 'Amelia' and 'Hejira'” from Pat Metheny while Lyle Mays played “subtle keyboard work” behind him. Don Alias took the spotlight with a solo on the congas that settled into a steady rhythm and led into the song 'Dreamland' while the rest of the band played various percussion instruments. During the final act of the shows, the Persuasions joined Joni to lend a gospel flavored vocal back up to 'Shadows and Light' and put their best doo-wop vocals to work as Joni channeled 1950s rock and roll singer Frankie Lymon on the Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers 1956 hit 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love'. Several reviews mention 'The Last Time I Saw Richard' as an encore, which was the only song in any of the shows accompanied by Joni at the piano. As a final encore, Joni paid tribute to the tenth anniversary of the Woodstock festival. She came back onstage alone with her electric guitar to perform the song she wrote for the festival and recorded on 'Ladies of the Canyon'. 'Woodstock' finished with Joni walking offstage, continuing to play her guitar for a short space of time after she had disappeared from the audience's view.

On September 9, 1979, the tour played the Santa Barbara County Bowl in Santa Barbara California before moving on to it's final stop in L.A. for five consecutive nights at the Greek Theatre. The Santa Barbara concert was videotaped and later edited into a special program for the Showtime cable television channel. The review in the Santa Barbara News Press mentions that the cameras and other equipment were set up after the end of the Persuasions' set and that Joni's movements during her performance had obviously been blocked for the taping. The review also states that “... it would have taken a great deal more than minor distractions to cool the ardor of her fans. She was obviously adored by her audience...” There was also an audio recording made of the Santa Barbara concert that would eventually become the double LP, 'Shadows and Light'.

Although the 'Shadows and Light' concert album was not released until September of 1980, it affords a taste of what the 1979 concerts sounded like, albeit a carefully edited one, and also provides a bookend to what is frequently referred to as the 'jazz period' of Joni Mitchell's music. 'Big Yellow Taxi', which most reviews cited as the opener of the 1979 shows, does not appear anywhere on this record. Instead, the first LP begins with an introduction that cannot be fully appreciated without the visual information that would eventually become available in the Showtime program, also titled 'Shadows and Light'. The first sounds from the recording are those of Lyle Mays playing sustained notes on his keyboard that are a bit reminiscent of the very first notes of the theme from the original 1960s Star Trek television series. Joni's voice comes in singing the first lines of the song 'Shadows and Light' – 'Every picture has its shadows and it has some source of light'. The Persuasions harmonize with her on the words 'blindness, blindness and sight'. Lyle Mays continues to play and then trails off as a snippet of dialogue from the film 'Rebel Without a Cause' is heard. Jim Backus is emphatically telling James Dean 'You can't be idealistic all your life, nobody thanks you for it!' while Dean mutters 'Except to yourself', repeating the words, mostly to himself. Finally he yells the phrase at Backus who shouts back 'Wait a minute !' Dean concludes with one more muttered 'Except to yourself.' Then Joni and Lyle Mays come back in again with the lines 'Compelled by prescribed standards or our own ideals we fight' and again the Persuasions harmonize with Joni on 'for wrong, wrong and right'. Once more, we are taken out of the live performance to a recording of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers singing '…..No, no, no, I'm not a juvenile delinquent' with a bit of their doo-wop harmony backup vocals heard at the end. The sound of the Santa Barbara audience applauding and shouting is then heard as Joni's rhythm guitar begins to play an intro to 'In France They Kiss On Man on Main Street'. Jaco Pastorius's bass comes in and right away the song is given a pulsing heartbeat that was missing from the much dryer sound of the studio recording from the 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns' album. As Pat Metheny contributes his nimble fingering on the upper notes of his electric guitar, it becomes clear that this group of musicians have added a new spark and punch to Joni's material that creates an exciting and engaging experience for live performance. 'Edith and the Kingpin' slackens the pace with Jaco adding a few pronounced notes under Joni's guitar intro. The band adds a repetitive chugging to the lines 'the band sounds like typewriters' that gives an impression of the sound of the now obsolete IBM Selectric typewriters that has long since vanished with the advent of the much quieter tapping of today's desktop computer keyboards. Joni ends the song by inserting a slight break between the words 'look' and 'away', taking the last word down, singing in a trailing-off breathy tone instead of maintaining the sustained high note that ends 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns' version. She follows up with the words 'They don't look away, no', sung with a world weariness that gives a haunting sense of tragedy to the story of Edith's ruin at the hands of the Kingpin. Metheny again adds some additional spark to 'Coyote' as Don Alias taps out intricate rhythms on his congas that pick the pace up again. Michael Brecker represents for Lester Young as his saxophone plays out a tastefully understated introduction to 'Good Bye Pork Pie Hat'. He continues to lay back until just before the last verse of the song where he plays a rapidly fingered solo on his horn. The second side of the first of the vinyl LPs begins with Joni singing 'The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines', hitting the notes with spot on accuracy, now completely comfortable and confident with the intricate melody, performing the first verse with only the sounds of Don Alias's drums behind her. Alias and Pastorius accompany Michael Brecker as he blows out a smoking be-bop flavored solo after the last verse of the song. The mood turns quiet and reflective as Joni plays the first notes of 'Amelia'. She plays solo up until Metheny comes in behind the fifth verse of the song that starts with the words 'A ghost of aviation, she was swallowed by the sky'. Pat starts by playing ethereal, haunting sounds that could be the stirring of Amelia Earhart's ghost. As the song progresses his guitar gradually becomes the sound of Amelia's plane, heard in the distance. After Joni finishes the last words of her beautifully rendered vocal, 'dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms' Metheny's guitar takes off, playing a solo that soars into the clouds where it climbs, loops the loop, floats and dives. Lyle Mays's “subtle keyboard work” provides the rarefied atmosphere that Metheny flies through, carried on the wings of his inspired guitar work. The finish of 'Pat 's Solo' segues into Joni's guitar intro to the song 'Hejira'. Jaco plays his harmonic, bending notes under her as Don Alias taps out rhythms on his congas. 'Strains of Benny Goodman' becomes 'strains of Michael Brecker' as Brecker provides a brief flourish from his saxophone. He continues to add embellishments to the mix until the end when he plays a lovely rideout with Jaco and Don playing underneath him. The sound of the audience's shouts, whistles and applause concludes the first LP of the set. The second LP begins with 'Black Crow”. Lyle Mays punctuates the ends of the song's verses with a keyboard riff that emulates the sound of a flute and Michael Brecker lets loose some pyrotechnics from his saxophone in the middle of song that pushes its frenetic energy up a notch or two. Jaco Pastorius provides a steady, rhythmic, but melodic pulse throughout that comes to the forefront as he winds things up at the end. Don Alias moves to the forefront next for 'Don's Solo'. His rapid, precise tappings make his congas sing as he moves swiftly between different pitches and rhythms. Ultimately he settles into a pattern that leads into the song 'Dreamland'. As Joni's vocal progresses, the other musicians can be heard playing various percussion instruments and joining in the singing of the 'Dreamland, Dreamland' choruses. Alias returns to the drum kit in full rock and roll mode as the band kicks into a rousing version of 'Free Man in Paris'. Again, Jaco Pastorius's bass adds a new, propulsive energy to the song and Michael Brecker provides some invigorating breaks on his saxophone. Joni introduces the band 'before these guys sneak off' and then begins an expressive rendition of 'Furry Sings the Blues'. She emulates the blues man's gravelly voice, replacing 'Old Furry's got nobody' from the studio version on 'Hejira' with 'I've got a woman on Monday, she shines up my shoes, my Tuesday woman gives me pleasure and the blu-ues' Her normal tone of voice takes the last word 'blues' into a crescendo that leads into an emphatic reading of 'There's a double-bill murder at the new Daisy.' Pat Metheny adds some eerie notes in the background that shade, accent and create phantom impressions of Furry's heyday as Joni paints her more concrete images of Beale Street as she saw it, in crumbling decay. As Joni finishes the song, Metheny plays a line of evocative, sustained, high notes that fall down to a lower register to end the first side of the second LP. The final side of the two record set begins with Joni calling for the Persuasions to come back out on stage. After a short pause she tells the crowd with some relish, 'We'd like to, uh, rock and roll ya now!' Michael Brecker launches into an infectiously swinging sax intro and the Persuasions start to cook up a classic doo-wop 'oo-wah, oo-wah' backup vocal. Joni takes her upper register into a very apt impression of Frankie Lymon's falsetto to lead the ensemble in a fun rendition of The Teenagers' hit, 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love?'. Brecker rocks out again in the break between the first and second verses of the song. The audience eats it up and is heard cheering and applauding loudly. When the applause begin to die down, the keyboard figure heard at the very beginning of the first LP is heard again. Joni once again begins to sing the first line of 'Shadows and Light' with the Persuasions joining her on the choruses. Most of the song is sung a cappella and the Persuasions lend a definite gospel flavor to the chorus with their close harmonies while Lyle Mays's keyboard adds a church organ sound whenever he plays behind the singers. The final 'wrong and right' of the last verse ends the song with a dissonant chord, underscoring the clash of the concepts illustrated in the lyrics and the ultimately taut balance that is struck between them. The mood changes as Joni and Jaco begin a gently swinging exchange between her guitar and his bass. Jaco plays the melody to the line 'God must be a Boogie Man'. A few people in the audience can be heard singing the words after Jaco plays them. The band repeats the line after Joni sings the first and second verses. The crowd repeats it after Jaco plays the notes in the instrumental break between the second and third verses and the band takes the final 'God must be a Boogie Man' in the final verse of the song. After the audience's appreciation subsides, Joni's solo guitar is heard and she begins a slow, thoughtful rendition of 'Woodstock'. Although her voice rises on the word 'golden' to a pitch and emphasis that is reminiscent of her original 'Ladies of the Canyon' take on the song, the feeling of reverence and awe has been replaced by a sense of looking back that is not nostalgic but more analytic. The dream of bombers turning into butterflies has not become reality and there is a regretful sense of the Woodstock generation's failure to get its soul free and get themselves back to the garden, or 'to some semblance of a garden' as Joni sings after the last chorus of the song. Still there is that reminder that 'we're stardust' coupled with the emphatic reminder 'we're golden'. The reality may be that a three day music festival was not enough to change the world, but the seed, the golden stardust is still in the make up of the human race and ten years was not nearly enough time to move the world 'back to some semblance of a garden'. Joni carries the message forward as she continues her guitar playing for another twenty seconds or so. Finally, the guitar and the audience's reaction fade out to end the record.

It is a bit of a disappointment that 'The Last Time I Saw Richard' wasn't included on 'Shadows and Light'. But given the nature of the music and the sequence of Joni's albums that are represented on this recording, it makes sense not to include the song, even if it was performed in the Santa Barbara concert. Joni presented herself as a guitarist and a vocalist on the record, fronting a band that was an ideal vehicle for the material from the five albums that made up the bulk of the songs performed. Singing a song from 'Blue' accompanied by her piano playing would probably have been incongruous with the record's overall sound and concept. 'Woodstock' was the single throwback to her pre-Court and Spark albums but it was done as a nod to the historic festival's tenth anniversary and she performed it in a way that blended well with the rest of the album. Omitting 'Richard', if she did indeed perform it, may have been a valid artistic choice, but, for myself, it makes me curious about how she would have performed the song in the context of the rest of those concerts. It also makes me envious of the people who were lucky enough to be present when she did perform it.

In a piece titled 'Joni Mitchell Has Her Mojo Working' that was published in the Los Angeles Times in June of 1979, referring to her collaboration with Charles Mingus, Leonard Feather asked Joni if she would “undertake anything else along comparable lines? “

“"I'm not sure," said Joni Mitchell slowly. "Eventually, if not in the next album, I'd like to experiment more with rhythm. I might do a completely acoustic album, almost like a folk album, but harmonically it would be different from folk music.

"You know, pigeonholes all seem funny to me. I feel like one of those lifer-educational types that just keep going for letters after their name. I want the full hyphenate - folk-rock-country-jazz-classic…..so finally, when you get all the hyphens in, maybe they'll drop them all and get down to just some American music." 

(Courtesy of JONIMITCHELL.COM)