Summary
Possibly the greatest female singer-songwriter of the post-Joni Mitchell generation was
Rickie Lee Jones, a protege` of
Tom Waits,
whose husky and sensual voice penned one of the boldest
attempts at the degraded moral landscape of urban America: her debut album,
Rickie Lee Jones (1979).
Fluctuating between sobriety and intoxication (both physical and spiritual),
Jones managed to be both visionary and romantic while singing about the
alienated and neurotic life in the city. Meanwhile, the backing band
tinged her ballads with nocturnal rhythm'n'blues and jazz, coining an
intellectual variant of late-hours lounge-music. Singer and band acted
"classy" while being deliberately sloppy.
Intricate psychodramas and surreal suspense also rule on Pirates (1981),
while Flying Cowboys (1989) is the best of her lighter collections.
New heights were reached with Traffic from Paradise (1993), her most
abstract, psychedelic, unfocused and cryptic work.
If English is your first language and you could translate my old Italian text, please contact me.
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Lontanissima dal virtuosismo delle grandi vocalist nere e dell'aristocatico
gorgheggio delle soprano occidentali, Rickie Lee Jones e` una
singer-songwriter dalla voce piana e mediocre, da ragazzina asmatica.
Ha pero` imposto un personaggio (musicale e non) che non aveva precedenti
nella storia del genere, un personaggio che vive l'alienazione e le nevrosi
della vita urbana, e che vive continuamente in bilico fra sobrieta` e
ubriachezza (materiali e metafisiche).
Rickie Lee Jones, attraente e giovanissima "sbandata" di
Chicago che emigro` in California per sottrarsi alle tragedie familiari.
Impiegatasi come cameriera nel circuito di locali offbeat del Sunset Strip
di Hollywood, Jones conquisto` presto il cuore di
Tom Waits, il quale la inizio` a sua volta
alla civilta` hipster.
All'inizio la sua vena visionaria e romantica la fecero scambiare per la
controparte femminile del compagno, ma in realta` le musiche di Jones facevano
riferimento a una tradizione musicale piu` colta.
In tal senso Rickie Lee Jones (Warner, 1979) fu un'opera subdola: Jones canta con
voce roca e sensuale, al limite della dissoluzione fisica, in un paesaggio
sonoro estremamente degradato, ma l'accompagnamento e` degno di una sinfonia
da camera.
Chuck E`s In Love (melodia swingante e arrangiamento rhythm and blues
con fiati e coro) scopre subito l'influenza principale, quella del Van Morrison
di Moondance.
Jones aggiorna poi il dialetto di Joni Mitchell in
Night Train e Last Chance Texaco, nel segno di un country-rock
chitarristico morbido e trasognato che viene nobilitato da scat e melismi
aristocratici.
Stabilite cosi` le coordinate di riferimento, Jones puo` lanciarsi in
vertiginose revisioni di generi: il rhythm and blues ipnotico di Weasel,
la classicheggiante On Saturday Afternoon (oboe, violoncello, violini),
la caraibica Young Blood,
il cocktail jazz da night fumoso Easy Money (vibrafono liquido, mandolino
ragtime, piano da saloon, grancassa)
e soprattutto
Danny's All Star Joint, un rhythm and blues viscerale e sincopato per big
band e con spettacolare perfomance vocale della cantante, che incalza maliziosa
e cattiva.
Ma forse la vera Jones e` quella che delira nell'agghiacciante suspense di
Coolsville: percussioni spettrali, gemiti di armonica, echi di pianoforte,
e un cupo senso di vuoto e solitudine.
Su Pirates (Warner, 1981)
la cantante svolge un ciclo di canzoni
free-form con altrettanto potere di suggestione. Si conferma la piu` jazz delle
cantautrici rock negli intricati psicodrammi di Living It Up
e Traces Of The Western Slopes e vocalist magistrale nel bisbiglio
flessuoso di We Belong Together, in un'altalena di registri e tonalita'
che costruisce una suspense di drammatica desolazione.
Nei momenti piu` classicheggianti (Skeletons) sembra una Joni Mitchell
rimasta senza fiato difronte all'orrore della vita, ma non mancano superbe gag
di arrangiamento surreale e ballabile, come la fanfara funky-gospel di
Woody And Dutch.
Girl at Her Volcano (Warner, 1983) e` un EP di covers e versioni dal
vivo.
The Magazine (Warner, 1984)
e` una sorta di concept autobiografico sulla solitudine
di una ragazza romantica e paranoica. Le liriche riescono a fondere uno spirito
da bambina perduta nel buio e un maturo stile confessionale, con persino qualche
volo metafisico. La musica le segue fedelmente, alternando cadenze da
filastrocche infantili (Juke Box Fury)
a complesse architetture sinfoniche jazz (Gravity).
E la sua voce e` il veicolo ideale per oscillare fra l'infantilismo piu`
surreale e la psicosi piu` nevrotica (It Must Be Love, Deep Space).
Runaround e Real End sono le canzoni piu` vivaci e swinganti.
Rorschachs Theme For The Pope e` invece una micro-suite in tre parti nella quale Jones
sprofonda in un delirio freudiano di ricordi e incubi, sottesa da un
accompagnamento scarno e dissonante, tetro e minaccioso.
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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
After falling in love with a French musician (but perhaps also because
of drugs and alcohol fatigue), Jones withdrew to private life, devoting her
time to literature and politics.
She returned after a five-year hiatus with the slightly more optimistic
Flying Cowboys (Geffen, 1989),
another classy gesture from a seasoned storyteller and mood-sculptor.
The talking blues Ghost Train (with only a stuttering boogie guitar
trying to dialogue with the voice) is more powerful a fresco of psychological
malaise than an army of Delta bluesmen.
The majestic gospel-like Horses embodies her existential
message, halfway between the epic and the desolate, the domestic and the
titanic. The piece is a slow accretion of momentum until the light drumming
and staccato piano phrases explode in a lilting passage and her detached
whisper turns into passionate shouting.
The jazzy, indolent, Caribbean-tinged Just My Baby is a show of her fragile melisma playing cat and mouse with a catchy melody.
She switches persona for the playful Ghetto In My Mind, mutating into a childish but rousing wail over reggae syncopation.
The ever-changing persona sings like a romantic and embraces an ethereal, vortex-like accompaniment in Rodeo Girl, her voice tiptoeing around spare electronics and guitar strumming.
Finally, she wears the clothes of the philosopher in the austere meditation of
Away From The Sky, and the music almost comes to an end, leaving the
stage to her gently echoed vocals.
Whether bordering on easy-listening country music (Satellites)
or joyful reggae fanfare (Love Is Gonna Bring Us Back Alive)
or lounge soul balladry (Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying),
Jones maintains a moral and musical integrity that defies stereotypes.
Musically, not a note is redundant. She could arrange her songs in much more
luxuriant manners, as she proves in the ethnic fantasia Atlas Marker
(with plenty of keyboards and horns and percussions and vocals), but instead
she chooses to keep most of them as naked as possible. She is an exhibitionist,
but what she exhibits is the soul not the "body" of her music.
Towering over all the lyrics and the music of the album is Jones' spectacular
vocal performance, the very definition of "subtlety" and "versatility".
After Pop Pop (Geffen, 1991), a collection of pop covers, Jones released
another gem, Traffic from Paradise (Geffen, 1993), her most
abstract, psychedelic, unfocused and cryptic album.
Featuring Leo Kottke on guitar, the album
strikes an odd balance between dense sound and simple playing: each instrument
mostly mutters disjointed notes, but together they create an enigmatic,
impenetrable soundscape.
The oneiric instrumental accompaniment of Pink Flamingos, with
wavering flute and syncopated blues guitar, takes six minutes to take shape,
the same time that it takes Jones to finish her story.
Even the sparest of all tracks, A Stranger's Car, that may sound almost a cappella, has an electronic breeze and other instruments that faithfully replicate her agony, and guitar and piano that tinkle in the background, and then an ominous "om" that closes the piece.
But clearly it is the voice that carries most of the emotional weight.
The guitar tinkles like a cello in Altar Boy and provides the only
anchor for the voice as Jones spins her melancholy lullaby.
She pens the lilting melody (worthy of a Christmas carol) of Stewart's Coat with little more than a ringing guitar, a hammering cello and a tenuous crescendo of backup vocals.
Her childish persona is resurrected for Tigers, propelled by sparse jazzy piano phrases and syncopated polyrhythms.
And then a mature, detached woman mutters the blues shuffle Jolie Jolie.
And then an ecstatic visionary intones the hymn-like singalong Running From Mercy.
Other than Beat Angels, a straightforward country tune, and the closing
The Albatross, these pieces are chamber music of a new kind.
After the acoustic live Naked Songs (Reprise, 1995),
Rick Boston and Robert Devery crafted the soundscape for
Ghostyhead (Warner, 1997), her electronic and trip-hop album, on
which her voice gets demoted to a side dish. Occasionally the combination works
(Clouds of Unknowing, Vessel of Light, Little Yellow Town),
but mostly Jones is left without orientation in a strange and hostile land.
It's Like This (Artemis, 2000) is another collection of covers.
The Evening of My Best Day (V2, 2003), her first album of original
material in six years, is an undistinguished effort by a traditional songwriter
who does not seem to belong in the new century. Except for
Mink Coat at a Bus Stop, the music is monotonous and dejavu.
Too many songs seem vehicles to channel her political views to a broad audience,
like those elderly people who are desperate to find someone who will listen to
them.
Jones even turned to Christian themes on
The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard (New West, 2007), an album born out
of a complicated set of circumstances (Jones added the melody and the lyrics
to instrumental tracks that had already been recorded).
Despite the eight-minute hypnotic I Was There, the quality of the music
is very low. The single is Falling Up.
Spiritual and domestic themes still abound on
Balm In Gilead (2009), but this time they occasionally materialize in
musical forms, e.g.
the
gospel hymn His Jeweled Floor (a duet with
Vic Chesnutt)
and the
jazz lullaby The Moon Is Made of Gold.
The Devil You Know (2012) contains covers.
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