Don Alias and Joni Mitchell

Melanie Futorian

Columnist since 2012

Don Alias' life partner for the last seven years of his life, working on completing his autobiography.

Recent articles (7 total)

Published: April 12, 2012

Joni Mitchell, Mingus Joni recorded with contemporary jazz musicians like [bassist] Jaco Pastorius, [saxophonist] Wayne Shorter and [pianist] Herbie Hancock, who was also a great friend of hers. At first there was something about Jaco's playing that Charlie just didn't like. Maybe he wanted an upright bass, maybe he wasn't too keen on Fender bass, but hey, we all knew that Jaco could handle the situation.

Not long afterwards, Mingus died at age 56, before the project was finished. The family went to Mexico to scatter his ashes by the ocean. Supposedly there on the sand were 56 beached whales.

"Goodbye Porkpie Hat"
Words by Joni Mitchell
Music by Charles Mingus

When Charlie speaks of Lester
You know someone great has gone
The sweetest swinging music man
Had a Porkie Pig hat on
A bright star
In a dark age
When the bandstands had a thousand ways
Of refusing a black man admission
Black musician
In those days they put him in an
Underdog position
Cellars and chittlins'
When Lester took him a wife
Arm and arm went black and white
And some saw red
And drove them from their hotel bed
Love is never easy
It's short of the hope we have for happiness
Bright and sweet
Love is never easy street!
Now we are black and white
Embracing out in the lunatic New York night
It's very unlikely we'll be driven out of town
Or be hung in a tree
That's unlikely!
Tonight these crowds
Are happy and loud
Children are up dancing in the streets
In the sticky middle of the night
Summer serenade
Of taxi horns and fun arcades
Where right or wrong
Under neon
Every feeling goes on!
For you and me
The sidewalk is a history book
And a circus
Dangerous clowns
Balancing dreadful and wonderful perceptions
They have been handed
Day by day
Generations on down
We came up from the subway
On the music midnight makes
To Charlie's bass and Lester's saxophone
In taxi horns and brakes
Now Charlie's down in Mexico
With the healers
So the sidewalk leads us with music
To two little dancers
Dancing outside a black bar
There's a sign up on the awning
It says "Pork Pie Hat Bar"
And there's black babies dancing...
Tonight!