Mark wrote:
> But I do think that 'Mingus' was not an easy record for her to make &
> I don't think that collaborating with a composer or lyricist comes
> naturally to her.
I feel the same way. I sense that with Tom Scott and some of her earlier
"collaborators" it just sort of came together serendipitously, like it
started out unplanned and they just naturally grooved off and enhanced
Joni's music. In that way, I don't consider them exactly collaborators, but
rather, contributors. So often it seems that if you plan and deliberate on a
creative project, the end product often falls a little shorter than if you'd
just come upon it naturally or spontaneously. Too much planning and
deliberation almost sets up a forced creativity. Scott and the others in
the earlier period seemed to find a fortuitous natural niche with Joni, but
when she made a calculated decision to go and collaborate creatively with
Mingus, and later with Klein, that sense of essential "Joni-ness" was a
little muted. The calculated collaborations did not seem to bring out the
highest in Joni and did the earlier ones that occurred naturally. So while
I don't ever want her to go purposely looking to hook up with another famous
musician just to see what might happen, I would still love if she happened
to find an affinity with another that brought out the very best in her.
Kakki
