I didn’t know Damien Rice or Lisa Hannigan either, but I’d heard some things they’d done and loved both their voices. You don’t hear a lot of modern harmonies on a Damien Rice record, so I wanted to see what he could do when we threw different harmonies his way. During our sessions I played piano the way I always do, changing things up with every take, and both Damien and Lisa ate it up.
Lisa in particular surprised me, because she could go off the deep end, mixing up the harmonies to a degree that I wouldn’t have expected. She improvised like a jazz musician, singing ninths and elevenths with such artistry that it reminded me of choices Miles Davis would make. And she sang with incredible emotion, in an ethereal voice that just cut through everything, right to the heart. We did a few takes, and somewhere around the fourth one, everybody in the studio could feel it come together. That was the take we used.
One of the most challenging songs for me was Paul Simon’s “I Do It for Your Love,” a gentle, rolling tune off his 1975 record Still Crazy After All These Years. Paul suggested the song because it had a lot of chord changes and different keys, a kind of built-in complexity that lent itself to a jazz treatment. In fact, it had already been covered by Bill Evans and David Sanborn. So Paul said, why don’t we do it as a jazz number on Possibilities?
My feeling was, if two other artists had already done jazz interpretations of the song, why would we want to do that again? I proposed a new spin, something nobody had tried yet: giving the song a different rhythmic feel by replacing the trap set with percussionists, which was something cool that I’d heard Don Was do on a solo album. Paul agreed, so we set up a date and time for recording the instrumental. He was supposed to show up later to record the vocal, but instead he showed up early, and by the time I got to the studio, he had already worked with the percussionists to lay down an amazing rhythmic feel.
Paul said, “You know, this song has a tender message, but these rhythms have a dark, exotic flavor. What if we did the entire piece with just one minor chord, laying the melody over the top of it?”
I loved Paul’s adventurousness, but the original song had so many chords and key changes that it seemed impossible to do what he was suggesting. But “impossible” was not in my vocabulary for this—or any—project, so I started thinking about whether there was another perspective that could make it work. I sat at the piano and started playing around with the idea, and eventually I hit on a solution. I put a single bass note, or pedal note, onto the bottom of new harmonies that fit the melody, which gave the illusion of one pivotal minor chord. It wasn’t exactly what Paul had asked for, but it got the effect. And Paul loved it.
For Annie Lennox we decided to record a piece by the singer-songwriter Paula Cole. The song was called “Hush Hush Hush,” and Annie did a gorgeous interpretation, her pure soprano soaring over the piano. Paula’s lyrics are simple but powerful:
Hush, hush, hush, says your daddy’s touch
Sleep, sleep, sleep, says the hundredth sheep
Peace, peace, peace, may you go in peace . . .
All of us in the studio were congratulating each other on having recorded “the take,” but we soon realized we weren’t actually sure what the song was about. Everybody had a different idea. Was it a historical allegory? Or the tale of a daughter’s disappointing her father? We went around and around until finally Annie said, “Herbie, you’ve got to call Paula!” So I did.
I told Paula that we had seven or eight different interpretations of what “Hush Hush Hush” was about and that we were desperate to know, to make sure our rendering was appropriate to the song’s meaning. She told me it was about a young man dying of AIDS, who finally comes out to his father on his deathbed. The song was actually based on a true story of someone Paula had known, making it all the more poignant and giving Annie’s rendition that much more emotional weight.
Then Annie got on the phone. As it turned out, Paula had been a huge fan of hers for years, and she’d seen Annie on every one of her tours since “Sweet Dreams” back in 1983. In fact, Paula was almost in tears, speaking with the woman who had been her musical idol for so long. It was such a lovely moment, bringing together these two fantastic artists—who are now linked forever through the recording of “Hush Hush Hush” we did that day.
My intention for Possibilities was to showcase artists performing in unusual musical settings. But I liked having the opportunity to put songs in different settings, too. With one minor chord we had turned Paul Simon’s “I Do It for Your Love” from a pop song into something darker and more exotic. I wanted to figure out a way to re-create the last song on the album, too: Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”
The song was such a huge hit in the 1980s that just about everybody on the planet knew its straight-up Euro-pop beat and Stevie’s vocal interpretation. We asked the guitarist and vocalist Raul Midón to record it, and we decided to use an arrangement I’d prepared for Diane Schuur and Take 6 to perform at the 1999 Kennedy Center Honors, when Stevie was an honoree.
In that arrangement the song’s opening was so radically different from the original, it was almost unrecognizable. Stevie had written the original with a kind of turn-of-the-century harmonic flavor, but I reharmonized it, which reshaped it into a different presence. On Possibilities the song opens with slow, lush piano and orchestral sounds, and when Raul starts singing, his voice is so pure and high that he was actually able do it in the same key I wrote for Diane Schuur! Raul’s range was just phenomenal, and toward the end he soared to a note that reminded me of Jiminy Cricket singing “When You Wish Upon a Star.” It was a fantastic performance from an amazing artist, perfect for ending the album.
Nearly all the records I’d done over my career were completely instrumental, and even the few that did have songs with vocals were mostly instrumental. Possibilities was the first one I did in which all the songs had lyrics, though that wasn’t the purpose behind making it. So . . . what if, for my next record, I specifically chose to explore lyrics? That was something I’d definitely never done before—which of course meant that as soon as the idea popped into my head, I knew I wanted to do it.
At the time I was under contract with Verve, so I had a conversation with one of their A&R people, Dahlia Ambach Caplin. Dahlia’s very hip, a huge jazz fan who knows all kinds of other music, too. As she and I talked she mentioned Joni Mitchell, who’s a lyricist of the highest caliber. “You could do a whole record of Joni’s songs,” Dahlia suggested, which I thought was a brilliant idea.
Joni is a real poet, a genius at creating portraiture through lyrics. Her songs are incredibly evocative, painting pictures in your mind. She also had a vast repertoire I could choose from, much of which had the basic elements of jazz already in place. And she had been a good friend of mine ever since we’d first worked together almost three decades earlier.
In the spring of 1979 I got a call one night from the bassist Jaco Pastorius. “Hey, Herbie,” he said, “I’m over here rehearsing for a record with Joni Mitchell, and we have all the pieces of the puzzle together except one: you.” He told me Joni wanted me to play on her new record and asked me if I’d be willing to come over.
I hesitated. As far as I knew, Joni Mitchell was a folk-rock singer, and that wasn’t a style I was particularly interested in. “Joni Mitchell, huh?” I said. “Who else is on it?”
Jaco said, “Well, there’s Wayne Shorter—”
“Okay!” I said. “I’m coming down.” That was all I needed to hear.
I drove down to A&M Studios in Hollywood, and when I walked in, I didn’t see Joni. Jaco was leading the session, with Wayne on saxophone and Peter Erskine on drums, and I thought, Great, we can stretch out! I knew that, with those guys, we could open up all kinds of avenues, but was that going to throw Joni off?
I asked Jaco about it, and he said, “Oh, no, you just go ahead and play your thing. That’s what Joni wants.” Really? I thought. I
still didn’t quite believe it.
Joni finally came in, and she counted off one of the songs. I started doing my thing, throwing in little moments here and there, and she was all over everything I did. I had never seriously listened to her sing before, and I realized she had an artistry I hadn’t been fully aware of; she was so smart in her choices, with such an amazing musical sense. Here I’d been worrying that she wouldn’t be able to keep up, and she was keeping me on my toes. She means every word she sings, and I’d put her up against anybody in jazz. She’s one of the best I’ve ever heard.
Later on, when I got to know Joni better, she told me she’d been raised on jazz. She remembered her parents playing Billie Holiday records and told me that those songs triggered her interest in singing. The only reason she’d gotten into folk music was because she was a poet, and she thought that was the easiest way to get her lyrics exposed. Joni taught herself to play guitar, but right from the start she experimented with alternate tunings. If you’ve ever been to a Joni Mitchell concert, you’ve seen the result of that, with multiple guitars lined up onstage, each one with a different tuning.
Throughout the ’70s Joni had been branching out from folk-rock into different styles of music, and she began hiring jazz musicians in her band. She was a far more accomplished musician than I knew, and after we played together on that first album, Mingus, we collaborated many times over the years.
Yet even having known Joni for so long and being such a fan of hers, I was a novice when it came to working with her lyrics. I really wanted to do this record, but I needed help, so I turned to Larry Klein, a wonderful producer and bass player who also happened to be Joni’s former husband. I knew Larry would be able to give me perspective on the meanings and stories behind Joni’s lyrics, and he also had a lot of experience working with all kinds of singers. With Larry’s help I believed we could create a record we’d be proud of.
We had to figure out which songs to choose, who the guest vocalists would be, and who would be the best personnel for the band. We brought in bassist Dave Holland, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, and guitarist Lionel Loueke. And I knew I wanted Wayne, not only because he’s the best at what he does but because he and Joni have a special bond.
In public Joni tends to let her music do the talking for her, but the truth is, she loves to talk! She has very strong opinions, and she can be argumentative, but she backs up everything she says and is incredibly articulate about it. I love listening to her, because she talks the way she writes—beautifully, poetically, and with great imagery. But what I really love is to listen when she and Wayne are having a conversation.
Hearing Wayne and Joni talk is like having an out-of-body experience. They speak the same language, and it’s a language I’m not sure anybody else in the world speaks. They both use a lot of metaphors, and they can just make leaps from one thing to another and still understand each other perfectly, even when everybody else in the room has lost the thread. I never really heard them talking directly about music, but they would often talk about life, and emotions, and experiences. Whenever I find myself in a room with the two of them, I try to do the smart thing: just shut up and listen.
They have the same kind of relationship musically. Joni will count off a song, and Wayne just goes with the flow, playing off her lyrics, applying his amazing intuition. Somehow he always nails it, right on the first take—and then Joni will say, “That’s perfect.” And then they’re on to the next thing.
I was excited about this record, but I didn’t want it to be necessarily a Joni Mitchell project. I wanted it to be Joni’s songs as heard through my prism, and through the prisms of the people who would be performing on the record. Joni did sing one of the songs, but she wasn’t directly involved in the rest, and that’s how we both preferred it. Her lyrics were the driving force, but the music was the stylistic creation of the band and the guest vocalists, which included Tina Tuner, Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza, and Leonard Cohen.
Because Joni’s words were the centerpiece for the record, I decided to write out a copy of each song’s lyrics for every musician who was playing. We all would read through them and then talk about what feelings and images they evoked. I’d talk about any backstory I’d learned from Larry, and we would explore what we thought the meaning was behind each song. In all the years I’d been playing I had never done that with musicians before, and it was such a cool feeling to try to dig deeper, to gain some greater understanding of what was going on beyond a song’s melody, rhythm, and structure.
I wanted us to play not just the music but the words—the meaning of the song. And the truth is, if we hadn’t done that, the record wouldn’t have sounded at all like it ultimately did. Paying attention to the lyrics took us in directions we hadn’t imagined before, and the result was a deeper, more satisfying connection to the music.
In late 2007 my assistant Melinda Murphy came down to my home studio from her office upstairs. Melinda had been with me for years, and she was, and still is, like my right arm—she’s one of the most loyal, hardworking people I’ve ever known. She started out as my assistant, but over time, on her own initiative, she taught herself everything there is to know about touring and the recording business, and now she’s my co-manager. Together with my daughter, Jessica, who also works with me, they cover all the bases.
Melinda told me that I’d been getting calls from the Recording Academy, which produces the Grammy Awards. “They want you to be one of the people who announce the nominees,” she said, and I grimaced. Melinda knows that I don’t like getting up early in the morning, and those announcements take place before dawn. “It seems really important to them,” she told me. “They’ve called a couple of times.” I sighed and said, “Okay, tell them I’ll do it.”
On December 6, the day of the announcements, I got up at five thirty in the morning to chant before heading out. At that hour I’m much more likely to be going to bed than getting out of it, but I tried to wake myself up enough to look presentable.
The announcements took place at the Henry Fonda Music Box Theatre in Hollywood, and I was one of about eight artists who were called into service that morning. Dave Grohl was there, and Taylor Swift, and Fergie, and the rapper Akon. The producers gave us all envelopes to open and read for different categories, and we stood on a stage in front of a small army of reporters and photographers.
Each of us took a turn announcing nominees, and I honestly don’t remember which category I had—I just opened up my envelope and read off the names. Then, for the last announcement, the hip-hop pioneer Jimmy Jam, who was also the producer and chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, stepped up to the microphone. He announced the nominees for Album of the Year, and I heard him say Amy Winehouse, the Foo Fighters, Herbie Hancock . . . What?
Jimmy Jam turned around and smiled at me, and I just stood there dumbfounded. Taylor Swift grabbed me in a hug, but I still couldn’t process that my name was one of those he’d read out. Jazz albums almost never got nominated for Album of the Year. In my wildest imaginings it never would have occurred to me that River: The Joni Letters would be selected.
This was the fiftieth anniversary of the Grammys, and as it turned out, the five records nominated for Album of the Year were all from different genres: The Foo Fighters were rock, Amy Winehouse was R&B, Vince Gill was country, Kanye West was hip-hop, and I was jazz. These artists made for some rarefied company, so I was happy just to have been nominated. By this time I had already won ten Grammys, but I knew my chances of winning this one were almost nil. Only one instrumental jazz record had ever won Album of the Year: Stan Getz and João Gilberto’s Getz/Gilberto, which introduced bossa nova to the American audience, way back at the 1965 awards.
For a few weeks I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I’d been nominated. I kept thinking about it, trying to take the situation apart. If I had learned anything in practicing Buddhism, it was that e
verything is connected somehow, so I found myself focusing on why this might have happened to me. The only thing I could come up with was the fact that, at this point in my career and my life, I was striving to give people a sense of empowerment, as that was a message I felt was worth sending. We’re all capable of succumbing to our demons, and some of my fellow nominees were publicly battling theirs. I had battled my own demons, too, but had managed to come out on the other side, and I really wanted to take this opportunity to send out a positive message to people.
Everybody knew the chances that I would win were very slim, so what would it mean if I actually did? For one thing, it would be fantastic for America’s greatest gift to the world, which is what I really believe jazz is. The award would be a tremendous encouragement for the whole jazz community and might inspire young people to listen to and create jazz.
It would also be an incredible demonstration of the power of Buddhist practice—Actual Proof that the practice of chanting and the strategy of the Lotus Sutra can overcome anything. Once I started seeing the award as a personal campaign to make the impossible possible, I got excited. I spent many, many hours chanting in front of my Gohonzon in the six weeks before the show. And although I might have been the only one who thought so, I came to believe I would actually win.
Part of the strategy of the Lotus Sutra is removing doubt from the equation, so that’s part of what I chanted for—to break down the barrier of doubt. At first it was scary trying to do this, but I felt that I had no choice. This was where the practice of Buddhism had led me, and now that I was here it was time to put up or shut up. So I did.
When I wasn’t chanting, I was spending hours practicing an arrangement of “Rhapsody in Blue.” Even before the nominations had been announced, the Grammys’ producer, Ken Erlich, had called to ask me if I’d be willing to perform a duet with the classical pianist Lang Lang during the show. Now, I hadn’t played classical music seriously since I was a twenty-year-old college student, and Lang Lang was one of the greatest classical pianists in the world. So when Ken proposed the idea, I said, “Come on, man! Don’t do this to me!”
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