Joni Mitchell’s favourite Miles Davis albums
Joni Mitchell is most popular and receives the most praise for her contributions to folk music in the 1960s, and it’s easy to see why. With seminal records like Blue, she forged a new kind of vulnerable yet poetic lyricism, charting her wanderings and wonderings with the accompaniment of a lonely acoustic guitar. But her work extended far beyond those strums.
Although Mitchell may have forged an early career within the folk realm, she refused to be contained in a box musically. She was a true sonic innovator, always looking for ways to make something wholly new and unique, which led her to explore several other genres throughout her career, one of which was jazz.
Mitchell honed an appreciation for jazz long before she began working within it. “I never thought of making that kind of music,” she explained to Downbeat in the late 1970s, “I only thought of it as something sacred and unattainable.” One artist she was drawn to in her listening habits was jazz legend Miles Davis.
Over a decade before Mitchell took her first steps into the industry, Davis forged a name for himself as one of the most influential figures in jazz. He created genre greats like ‘Blue in Green’ and ‘So What’, working with fellow trailblazers John Coltrane and Bill Evans to do so. He put out 60 albums over the course of his career, but there were two that particularly affected Mitchell so deeply that they became some of her favourite albums of all time.
“Nefertiti and In A Silent Way became my all-time favourite records in just any field of music,” she divulged. Nefertiti was released in 1968, and Davis collaborated closely with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, the latter of whom was a huge fan of Mitchell’s. In a Silent Way was put out just one year later, and demonstrated Davis’ growing penchant for experimentation.
Given the singularity of Davis’ work, it’s no surprise that Mitchell was a fan. Despite her beliefs in her own originality, though, she didn’t feel that she could venture into jazz herself. She contained the genre to her private listening for a long time. “Somehow or other, I kept that quite separate from my own music,” she explained.
This misconception about her talents was quickly rectified when Mitchell began veering into jazz experimentation in the mid-1970s. Records like Hejira and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter would see her taking tentative first steps into the genre, but it wasn’t until she stumbled upon jazz musician Charles Mingus that she fell into it entirely.
Mingus had written a number of songs for Mitchell to pen lyrics for, emboldening her to give in to her love for the genre. The pair would work together on Mingus, a record that fused the piano player’s penchant for jazz experimentation with Mitchell’s lyrical prowess and familiar vocals. The record was released in the summer of 1979, not long after Mingus passed away.
Although Mitchell would veer into different genres in the years that followed, her jazzier influences would occasionally rear their head, owing to the continuing influence of figures like Davis and Mingus. Though Mitchell would always strive for originality in her work and succeed at this goal, she was also subject to the influence of her collaborators and listening habits, which only strengthened her sound.
