Joni Mitchell plays at MOMA
My best friend in High School had a crush on Joni Mitchell. He bought a copy of her record album "The Hissing of Summer Lawns," when it was released, in 1975. I listened politely. It was (to me), pretty much as expected -except for one track, The Jungle Line. I had to admit I liked it. I asked to hear it again. And again...
I didn't just like it. It gave me an uncanny sense of deja-vu and, at the same time, a premonition of things to come. I snatched the album cover jacket to read the liner notes for a clue as to what the background drumming was. Listed as "the warriors of the drum," or some such nonsense (which turned out to be ethnologically incorrect), it refers to the African nation of Burundi.
Next chance I had, I rushed down to the record store for a copy of the "warriors of the drum," (or whatever its title). The salesman knew exactly what I was looking for. I snapped-up the last record (on display). This was (for me) a new listening experience. The album notes of Joni Mitchell's record stated, additionally, that The Jungle Line used a field recording from Africa of the Drummers of Burundi, over which was dubbed guitar, Moog synthesizer, and, of course, Joni Mitchell's vocal track.
For the song The Jungle Line, Joni is credited with the first commercially released song to include a sample featuring a looped recording of percussion by the African ensemble the Drummers of Burundi. We take this sort of thing for granted (now) but, in 1975, it was (as I said) a premonition of things to come. I doubt most World music fans, today, have any idea where it all started.
When Joni Mitchell was asked what prompted her to use the drums sample, she acknowledged that "people thought it was weird." I would give anything to sit-in on the studio production of the number. I believe it was not used at whim, nor could it have been an easy production to engineer at the time. With only a star the likes of Joni Mitchell would audio engineers have agreed to collaborate on so innovative a format.
But, enough said (by me) about the music, which, incidentally, includes other musical delights, such as Joni's singing. What I liked about her singing is that she doesn't so much sing it, as recite it -like a beat poet giving a reading. More to the point, The Jungle Line lyrics pay homage to the art of the French Post-Impressionist painter Henri Rousseau, alluding to details of his unique style, with the song's images of the concrete jungle; namely, uptown New York City.
It is possible the Canadian Joni Mitchell never rode the A train past 53rd Street, at 6th Avenue, where the Museum of Modern Art is located, but we may assume she visited MOMA. There, Joni would have viewed The Dream (1910), by Henri Rousseau. We assume, because the lyrics of her song “The Jungle Line,” begin with-
Rousseau walks on trumpet paths
Which is not necessarily an allusion to the painter Henri Rousseau, except that the name Rousseau is evoked again;
Rousseau paints a jungle flower behind her ear
-by means of which lyrics Joni paints a cocktail waitress, a figure in her panorama of the jazz speakeasy demimonde—the true subject of the song—and which theme is developed more fully in the song. The allusion to Henri Rousseau, at this point, is unmistakable. Unmistakable, that is, unless the listener is a minor (with little knowledge of art), and none whatsoever of the speakeasy demimonde.
What an art student and a minor (at that time) may be excused for missing, is the specific painting by Henri Rousseau which Joni alludes-to in her song, and which, after years of deconstructing cultural meaning, I take to be The Dream (1910), by Henri Rousseau, now (and then) in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. See it, next time you're at MOMA, while The Jungle Line (1975), by Joni Mitchell, is playing on your iPhone (with ear buds).