Re: goodbye pork pie hat

[SCJoniGuy]

<< did mingus write the music well before it appeared on
 joni's cd, or did mingus write the tune specifically
 for joni to pen lyrics to it? >>

I'm not an expert on Mingus, but here's my understanding on it, and somebody 
correct me if I'm wrong. (Might even inspire Boston Jim to come out of his 
dark corner! ;~D)

A Chair In the Sky, Sweet Sucker Dance, Dry Cleaner, Pork Pie Hat were all 
Mingus compositions that existed WAY before this project. Joni added the 
words.

Boogie Man & Lindsey are totally Joni's, words & music.

Now you asked about the concept of what constitutes a "Joni cover" regarding 
the Mingus stuff. And it gets interesting, because it's totally 
subjective...I think of the following songs as "Joni songs" because the first 
time I heard them was when I heard Joni do them:

You're So Square, Baby I Don't Care
Twisted
How Do You Stop
All the Mingus songs

The following I *don't* think of Joni songs:

Why Do Fools Fall In Love
Centerpiece
Cool Water
Corrina, Corrina
My Best to You
Everything on BSN EXCEPT BSN (duh!) and ACOY

Because I associate them with other artists.

Now, to further cloud the issue, if you do a little bit of research you'll 
soon discover that just about every Jazzer (and some rocker as well) has done 
"Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". Do we need them all? I would say no. Obviously, if 
they have Joni's words as part of the performance, then it becomes a must 
have. If it's an instrumental performance that really stands out, then I 
would say let's include it.

I'd like to add Jeff Beck's performance of Pork Pie to the collection, just 
because of his reputation and notoriety. I recently picked up a version of 
Pork Pie by the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble, six mandolinists performing it. 
Haven't heard it yet, but am anxious to.

Also, it's worth pointing out that there is another writer who put lyrics to 
"Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". I'll have to do some more research into that as I'm 
ignorant on that point at present.

Hope that answers the question...there are probably about 100 versions of 
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat out there, so if we try and snag them all, we're gonna 
get too far away from our target I think.

Bob

NP: Joni jamming with Kyle, "Trouble Man"