Topic: Hejira

[nichi]

All this nostalgia:: all Jen's fault, heheh!       

Hejira
Joni Mitchell


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQPB_HAQyB4&feature=related

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I'm returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl

You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen...
Strains of Benny Goodman
Coming thru' the snow and the pinewood trees

I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I know - no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality - to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality
In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There's the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way




A Renaissance Woman she!

[nichi]

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

Great album title, eh? And she was a Carlos Castaneda aficionado. I remember reading an account of a talk he gave, where she was in attendance. This particular album, though, is when she began to lose me. She experimented a lot thereafter with jazz fusion into her work. The good news was that she brought Jaco Pastorius (a wonderful bass player) into the limelight. The bad news (for me) was that gone were her hypnotic modal tunings.  And I sure couldn't sing along any more! <grin> Her material no longer hit my ear ...

From Hejira:

Black Crow


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV4D1hez-Lw

There's a crow flying
Black and ragged
Tree to tree
He's black as the highway that's leading me
Now he's diving down
To pick up on something shiny
I feel like that black crow
Flying
In a blue sky

I took a ferry to the highway
Then I drove to a pontoon plane
I took a plane to a taxi
And a taxi to a train
I've been traveling so long
How'm I ever going to know my home
When I see it again
I'm like a black crow flying
In a blue, blue sky

In search of love and music
My whole life has been
Illumination
Corruption
And diving, diving, diving, diving.
Diving down to pick up on every shiny thing
Just like that black crow flying
In a blue sky

I looked at the morning
After being up all night
I looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light
I looked out the window
And I saw that ragged soul take flight
I saw a back crow flying
In a blue sky
Oh I'm like a black crow flying
In a blue sky

[Jennifer-]

All this nostalgia:: all Jen's fault, heheh! 

  

Oh I'm like a black crow flying
In a blue sky

[TIOTIT]

I've been listening to her music esp hejira for 20 years or more.I also listen to weather report because Jaco
plays some really fine music with them.check out black market by WR  great stuff...same thing happened with
me and Joni's latter music I just didn't connect with it...

[nichi]

I love Weather Report! I used to do a lot of interesting things to WR....
But I guess you know Jaco passed, eh? Can't remember the circumstance. He was one of a kind! Truly the best bass player I ever heard.

Somewhere in this house, there are WR albums on vinyl... I'll have to dig them out!

[nichi]

Tio! The house where I am is pretty much in disarray -- 2 out of the 4 WR albums have been found. The ones which I listened to over and over again were "Heavy Weather" and "River People", and they're missing, but my roommate still has "Black Market" and another.  He also tells me he had a solo album by Jaco, which is supposed to be amazing. If you are interested, we can make a cassette (vs cd) recording of it for ya.
(Or are cassettes one of those things which have different protocols in us and australia?) 

[TIOTIT]

Thanks Nichi...I have 2 of Jacos solo albums...Word of Mouth and Invitation,he played
with many and varied artist...so he pops up everywhere...I also have Heavy Weather.
I really appreciate your gesture...thanks...like a lot of inspired and gifted artist he was
excessive to the point of self destruction.He ended this life rather tragically like so many
other great Musos and with time the truth becomes obscured.


During this time he played in various solo acts and many nightclubs in Fort Lauderdale and New York City. He became an outcast in the music business. His final address while alive was Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After sneaking onstage at a Carlos Santana concert September 11, 1987, he was ejected from the premises and made his way to the Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors, Florida. What then happened was clouded with discrepancy. Some say he tried to kick in the glass door after being refused entrance, others say he did absolutely nothing and did nothing to deserve his fate. Whatever the case, he ended up in a violent confrontation with the club bouncer, Luc Havan, who was trained in martial arts. Pastorius was hospitalized with multiple facial fractures and gruesome disfigurement to his face, including the probable loss of his right eye and sustained irreversible brain damage. He slipped into a coma and was put on life support. Increasing signs pointed to brain death and his family decided to remove him from life support. After life support was removed, his heart continued to beat for three hours. Pastorius died on September 21, 1987, aged 35, at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.

In wake of his death, Havan was charged with second degree murder and went to trial. However, Havan only ended up serving 4 months for this crime.

Jaco is buried at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in North Lauderdale.

[nichi]

So tragic! My roommate tells me he read a biography of J, which said that J had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. If that was true, then he really accomplished a lot, way more than the average musician!
As you say, we'll never know the truth.

I would have loved to hear him play with Santana, musically! Sitting here imagining the two different fluidities combined... but.
It's a challenging thing, those egos, when musicians play with each other Certainly will test one's social skills! (I had a small go or 2 at being in bands 30 some yrs ago --- didn't amount to much, but wow what hard work just keeping things on an even keel.)

"Birdland" is playing ... I always loved WR's percussion!

[nichi]

Since this exchange, I have been listening to a cassette my roommate made somewhere along the line, of "Heavy Weather" and the next one ("River People"?)  I still love it, and there were a couple of cuts from them that I probably "abused" way back when, when I used to use a lot of ritual. It's funny how songs can stay in our heads, note for note and nuance for nuance, for 25+ years! It has been that long since I listened to them.

But here is an interesting discovery.  I've changed, eureka!
I used to rush to the turntable to skip the song called "TeenTown" -- too frenetic it was for me back then.  Now, I can take all of it in -- the notes slip easily into my receptors -- in fact, it's kind of a funny song, with that punctuating high hat and bass drum. I never appreciated it back then.

It's been kind of interesting, bombarding myself with nostalgia, realizing I have an entirely different body and sensibility now. 

When I finally get to the old folks' home, who knows? I might be requesting Miles Davis!

[TIOTIT]

It's funny how songs can stay in our heads, note for note and nuance for nuance, for 25+ years! It has been that long since I listened to them.

This is one of my major interest...the way music,rhythm,chants and prayers remain locked in for a lifetime...more later

[nichi]

It's funny how songs can stay in our heads, note for note and nuance for nuance, for 25+ years! It has been that long since I listened to them.

This is one of my major interest...the way music,rhythm,chants and prayers remain locked in for a lifetime...more later

That still intrigues me, Tio...

I found this interesting arrangement of Hejira!

Enjoy!

[nichi]

Omg, here's Teen Town by Weather Report (with Jaco!) on youtube!
Now I have to get my new puter set up ... the blips just won't do here.

[Angela]

Omg, here's Teen Town by Weather Report (with Jaco!) on youtube!
Now I have to get my new puter set up ... the blips just won't do here.

The "Midnight Special"...now that's a blast from the past!   I used to watch it all the time when I was a teenager...heh!

A

[nichi]

Coyote, Live with Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny and Don Alias

Some nice footage of a coyote playing in the snow.

No regrets Coyote
We just come from such different sets of circumstance
I'm up all night in the studios
And you're up early on your ranch
You'll be brushing out a brood mare's tail
While the sun is ascending
And I'll just be getting home with my reel to reel...
There's no comprehending
Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes
And the lips you can get
And still feel so alone
And still feel related
Like stations in some relay
You're not a hit and run driver, no, no
Racing away
You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

We saw a farmhouse burning down
In the middle of nowhere
In the middle of the night
And we rolled right past that tragedy
Till we turned into some road house lights
Where a local band was playing
Locals were up kicking and shaking on the floor
And the next thing I know
That Coyote's at my door
He pins me in a corner and he won't take "No!"
He drags me out on the dance floor
And we're dancing close and slow
Now he's got a woman at home
He's got another woman down the hall
He seems to want me anyway
Why'd you have to get so drunk
And lead me on that way
You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines of the freeway

I looked a Coyote right in the face
On the road to Baljennie near my old home town
He went running thru the whisker wheat
Chasing some prize down
And a hawk was playing with him
Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes
He had those same eyes - just like yours
Under your dark glasses
Privately probing the public rooms
And peeking thru keyholes in numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds
And take their temporary lovers
And their pills and powders to get them thru this passion play

No regrets, Coyote
I just get off up aways
You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

Coyote's in the coffee shop
He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs
He picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching the waitresses' legs
He's too fat from the Bay of Fundy
From Appaloosas and Eagles and tides
And the air conditioned cubicles
And the carbon ribbon rides
Are spelling it out so clear
Either he's going to have to stand and fight
Or take off out of here
I tried to run away myself
To run away and wrestle with my ego
And with this flame
You put here in this Eskimo
In this hitcher
In this prisoner
Of the fine white lines
Of the white lines on the free, free way

[nichi]

Amelia

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
it was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture-post-card-charms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I wish that he was here tonight
It's so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia, it was just a false alarm

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms