Producing My Pantheon

Fado, Herbie, Wayne, Dave, Tina and River: The Joni Letters

by Larry Klein
Substack.com
October 21, 2026

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Edith And The Kingpin: Part I

Ana Moura and Fado

Curiosity seems to be the key to everything. The phone call. One of the things that is great about working in a collaborative art form is that unpredictable things can happen suddenly with one phone call, text, or e-mail. The next year of your life can become a new adventure, informed by meaningful synchronicity and unlimited possibilities. All in the context of one conversation.

There have been numerous instances where "the phone call" was part of a string of magical coincidences. At one point in 2011 I happened to be exploring the world of Fado, which is the singer-songwriter tradition of Portugal. I was listening to a lot of Amalia Rodriguez, and reading about the unusual specifics of the Fado tradition. I was curious about the many stylistic "rules" of Fado. Fado came out of the street. Many of the singers were originally women who were either courtesans or who had been victims of circumstance. There were traditional artifacts that had become rules of a sort for fado singers. The singer would always wear a black shawl; an indication that she is a mournful soul who wandered the streets and was, in Tennessee Williams vernacular, "depended on the comfort of strangers." Instrumentation was limited to a Portuguese guitar and perhaps a nylon-string guitar. The vocalist does not sing through a microphone.

One day I got a call from Ana Moura's manager about the possibility of working on an album with Ana, who was and is one of the most popular fado singers in Portugal. Before I knew it I was on a plane to Lisbon to begin the pre-production process on a Fado album on which went about breaking all of the rules of Fado, working with a new generation of Fado songwriters and putting Portuguese musicians together with American musicians to put together a new musical language for the traditional Portuguese song-form. The name of the album was "Desfado". It translates to "Not Fado".

The Herbie Call

One day in 2006 I got a call from Dahlia Ambach-Caplin who is an A&R person with Verve Records. She had an idea. The idea was to work with Herbie Hancock to reimagine a group of Joni's songs in a jazz context. I immediately felt that this was an exciting idea and an opportunity to work on a project that would weave together a some big threads in my life.

Many of the specifics of how we should approach the project came together in my mind. I knew that Wayne Shorter would have to be a part of it, as Wayne was a bridge between the work that I had done with Joan and all the work that I had done in the jazz world. Joni had also worked with Herbie on the "Mingus" projects, and also with Wayne on a number of other album projects prior to us working together. We had also worked with Wayne in the context of the albums that she and I collaborated on together. As Wayne might say, "the mission had begun!" The other piece of the puzzle that immediately fell into place in my mind was that I would want Dave Holland to play bass on the project. Both Herbie and Wayne had worked quite a bit with Dave, and he had been a big influence for me as a bassist and as a composer. An original voice. As far as I know, from the very beginning. I had a Kohler & Campbell spinet piano that my grandmother had given me in my childhood bedroom. I had a small black and white photo of Dave that sat on that piano for many years. I remember crawling my way through Bartok's basic piano method "Mikrocosmos", stopping here and there and looking over at that photo. Choices

I don't recall whether she or I first approached Herbie with the idea, but I do remember that he immediately was excited about working together on it. Before the week was up I was sitting in his studio waiting for him to finish chanting. Herbie came down the stairs into his studio, and intertwined with the rambling philosophical discussions that are always a part of things when we talk, we began to consider the question of who the other players should be. Herbie is a correlative thinker, and a conversation about musicians can easily wander into the parallels between Buddhist and Jewish philosophy, Miles Davis stories, astrophysics and the musical language of Stravinsky.

I felt that Vinnie Colaiuta would be the ideal choice for drums. Vinnie is a limitless musician who plays beyond genre. He and I had known each other and played together for over half of my life, and he was a part of a number of albums that Joan and I had worked on together. Herbie suggested that we include Lionel Loueke, who was a guitarist from Benin. Herbie had become aware of Lionel when he was part of an early group of young musicians who were selected for The Monk Institute, which was an educational entity that Herbie had created that was based at UCLA. Lionel is, and was, a musical anomaly. A musician steeped in the musical tradition of Benin, and equally facile in the many areas that are a part of the jazz guitar lexicon. A constantly inventive guitarist with the humility and curiosity that are part of seeing music beyond any boxes or genres.

Songs and Stories

I made a beginning with the process of putting together what I call The Big Basket. This is the first group of songs that feel like possibilities for the project. In this case, the big basket consisted of about fifty songs, as I felt that we needed to consider songs that were important songs in Joan's musical development, as well as her songs that might be approached through a jazz looking glass without feeling intentional, laminated or forced. Even though people rarely listen to a whole album in continuity now, I think of the songs on an album as short stories grouped together in a book. The stories are each part of a bigger story. The high bar that Joan has always set for herself in every facet of songwriting certainly didn't help narrow down the group that would be selected. I wanted the songs that we picked to not only show the breadth and depth of her as a songwriter and artist, but to also add a pointillistic biographical dimension to the album as well. After days of listening to her songs as well as songs that were important to her, and reading through the lyrics to many of these songs, I called Herbie to set up coming over to go over songs. I had narrowed things down to what I simply call The Basket, which is a smaller and more workable selection of songs that all feel like potential final choices for the album. In this case I had winnowed things down to 25 songs. There still was a lot of work left to do in order to distill the final group of ten to twelve songs that would be our cutting list for the album.

Words And Music

I arrived at the door to Herbie's studio with two folders of lyrics in my bag. Herbie's manager Melinda opened the door for me, and I went in and sat down at a desk that was in one corner of the studio. I put one pile of lyrics in front of me and one in front of Herbie's chair. The door to the house opened and Herbie came walking in. I gave him a hug, and then we sat down at the the desk. Herbie looked at the pile of lyrics in front of him and paused a few beats. "You know.... I've never listened to words to songs, Larry." I wasn't sure what to say, so I just smiled. "Well Herbie... you're going to have to start now!" We both started giggling a bit, then exploded in laughter.

We made a start by playing "Edith And The Kingpin":

The big man arrives
Disco dancers greet him
Plain clothes cops greet him
Small town, big man, fresh lipstick glistening
Sophomore jive
From victims of typewriters
The band sounds like typewriters
The big man, he's not listening
His eyes hold Edith
His left hand holds his right
What does that hand desire
That he grips it so tight

I told him that the protagonist of the song was a pimp. The bar where the poem is placed is his domain. "Sophomore jive... from victims of typewriters"... is there a better way to describe the small talk that is the language of office-dwellers? "The band sounds like typewriters, the big man, he's not listening".... what is a better way to set the stage for the lynchpin question that leads you forward. "What does that hand desire, that he grips it so tight".

I told Herbie the story of the song that I had heard many times. Stories and words. Joan had told me the story behind these songs many times. It's what happens when people are married or in a long relationship. We all do it. We repeat the stories from our life to each other through the months and years. I'm curious. I love hearing stories repeated. Details are added with each iteration. A character's perspective that previously was only vaguely dealt with gets articulated in detail; a moment in the plot of the story that was raced through is expanded. Maybe the next time background information about the setting for the story is filled in. The next time what time of year it was, the color of the drapes, or the color of someone's hair.

Herbie is 87 years old. He's had a big life. He is a musician who resides on an Olympian stratum. He has never stopped evolving, always seeking out fresh musical ground to explore. All of these things have made him an inspiring mentor for me. But the thing that I most admire about him; the thing that amazes me, is that he is still curious. He has always been curious about everything.

Edith in the ring
The passed-over girls are conferring
The man with the diamond ring is purring
All claws for now withdrawn

Edith is the new girl. New flesh. She has to deal with the jealousy and envy of the ones who have been taken and who are now cast into the anonymous background.

One by one they bring
His renegade stories to her
His crimes and his glories to her
In challenge they look on
Women he has taken grow old too soon
He tilts their tired faces
Gently to the spoon

Just as they are riven with envy, the other women look to attach themselves to the new girl; to put themselves in her good graces. Then the description of those who have stayed too long.

Edith in his bed
A plane in the rain is humming
The wires in the walls are humming
Some song, some mysterious song
Bars in her head
Beating frantic and snow blind
Romantic and snow blind
She says, his crime belongs
Edith and the kingpin
Each with charm to sway
Are staring eye to eye
They dare not look away
You know they dare not look away

She's made the deal. Everything has been consummated. The cocaine optimism is omnipresent but fragile. "Romantic and snow-blind... she says his crime belongs"...She's made her choice, and she justifies it to herself with the pliable amorality that is part of the territory that one usually lives in when cocaine is present.

The Reimagining

We had narrowed our songlist down to twelve. One of the first songs that was confirmed as being on the master list was "Edith And The Kingpin". As I was doing pre-production for the recording sessions I went into my studio in Santa Monica to put together a simple demo of the rhythmic approach that I wanted to use as an engine for the reimagining of Edith. In thinking about the story of the lyric I knew that I needed a rhythmic fabric that had a sensual swing to it. A bit of the street, but braided together with a cosmopolitan musical subtext. I started playing with a groove that had a hint of the shuffle groove that Ahmad Jamal used in approaching "Poinciana" on the "Live At The Pershing" album. I had loved that album since I was about 15. It had an elegant space and swing to it. I didn't want any kind of literal musical reference point for Edith. Just a metaphorical point of departure that we might use elements of to put a guide vocal down and that could possibly work to play to with Herbie, Wayne, Dave, Vin and Lionel.

In casting the new version Herbie and I both agreed that the perfect storyteller for Edith would be Tina Turner. Tina was living in Zurich. One day during the numerous pre-production meetings that we had at Herbie's studio he managed to get Tina on the phone. At this point she was retired for all intents and purposes. When Herbie asked her if she would sing the song for us she paused, then gently said "Okay Herbie." I had the distinct feeling that the only people who could get her to sing on anything at this point were Herbie and Wayne. Herbie had spent a lot of time around her during a period after she split up with Ike.... a period where she was living with Wayne and his wife Anna Maria at their house in Los Angeles. I felt that her agreeing to sing Edith was at least partially the repaying of a karmic debt for her. She had built a comfortable life for herself in Zurich in a house overlooking the Lake Zurich, and felt no need to be on the road singing anymore. She had done it all. She'd had a career in which she'd reinvented herself several times with grace and great choices.

The Session

Walking from my hotel to the Avatar Studios on 53rd between 9th and 10th Ave. I felt a combination of the excitement that I always feel when starting sessions on a project and a kind of nervousness that I'd never felt before. I would be working as a producer with a group largely composed of musicians who had been my heroes from a very early age on. I also had a detailed knowledge of every part of Joni's musical language and harmonic vocabulary as well as knowing every specific of musical architecture that was anathema to her. She even had specific melodic movement that she disliked. I knew that the beacon to guide us needed to be the idea that every element of the music had to serve as underscore to the poetry. Nothing could be arbitrary. While working in a spontaneous improvisational form, all of the playing needed to be compositional. We needed to access a perfect balance of intuition and compositional structure.

Everyone gradually arrived at the studio. We got sounds on everyone. First we listened once to Joni's original version. We ambled through the song, letting everyone get their headphones balanced as we ran the pre-recorded elements that we were playing to. Once everyone was comfortable with their headphone balance we played the song down. Everyone looked up at me, wide-eyed and expectant. The engineers hadn't recorded the run-down! Wayne and Herbie let out a yell when I told them. It brought up bad memories, as they both had told me the story of the engineers on Miles' session for the songs that ended up being Miles' album "Nefertiti". When the quintet started working on Wayne's song "Nefertiti" the engineers hadn't been in record on the first run-through. Both Herbie and Wayne are adamant that this version was "the one". (From this point on Miles always instructed the engineers to stay in record from the very beginning of the session until the end.). The second version is the one that is on Miles' album "Nefertiti", and is a classic song that every jazz musician is expected to learn. It ended up being one of the songs that we would be recording, as it is a important record that Joan has always loved, one that she has repeatedly come back to as a reference.

The Turning Point

We got re-set and did another pass on Edith. As much as the playing was great, everyone was still finding their place in the song. As they finished, my mentors looked into the control room with anticipation. The look on their faces said "So that's it, right?" I could sense the tension of impatience. I asked them to all come in, and to bring them their copy of the lyrics that I had given them. I told them the story of the song, explaining each line of the lyric. I told them about what our guiding principle had to be as we re-interpreted and reimagined the songs. Every note had to be in service of the poetry. The playing had to be the underscore for the musical story of the songs, otherwise we would simply be creating a "jazz version" of these great songs.

My inner voice was speaking to me.. "who are you to tell guys how to play??!!! They're your heroes!" I had to face this internal voice down and say "NO! We've got to go beyond simply making a good jazz album with undeniably great musicians.... we have to create a new musical language for this album to be what it needs to be!!!" It can't just be "jazz". I thought "we have to do all of this AND hold on to the insouciance and lack of intent that is the standard that THEY set in their best work!"

After I finished my little speech the room was silent for a few beats. My heart felt like it was going to bounce out of my chest. The other internal voice spoke up again... "Are they thinking WHAT A BUNCH OF B.S.!"??? Then Wayne was the first to speak... "I'm the guy at the end of the bar..... watching EVERYTHING!" "YES!" I responded. "Exactly!" I could breathe again. Wayne is compelled by the story.

I looked around the room, and everyone was sitting, quietly re-reading the lyric and nodding their head.

On the next pass Lionel began working with motif of rhythmic wah-wah pedal movement. "Disco dancers greet him...". Exactly. Herbie began to leave big spaces in places under important lines of the lyric, then spreading beautifully voiced chords sparingly, and playing brief illustrative lines. Lionel gravitated to a beautiful Memphis-y chank part through the verses. Wayne began to play low murmuring lines. He had taken on being the voice of "The Big Man". "Sophomore jive, from victims of typewriters" ... Wayne played a mechanical undulating low figure. Perfect. We had opened up some bars of free transitional space at the end of the verses for interaction. In the free space at the end of the first verse section Wayne and Herbie both ascended together, psychically intertwined. Beyond notation. Beyond anything that could have been written. We had gotten to that ineffable place that we needed to be in. We all closed our eyes. We were there. The footprints of how we got there were gone. It didn't matter. We were there.

Tina

As is often the case on projects where there are different singers delivering various songs, on many tracks we had to travel to where singers were to get vocals done. Shortly after the tracking dates the engineer Helik Hadar and I boarded a flight to Zurich from Los Angeles with a studio booked in Zurich to work with Tina Turner on her vocal for Edith.

The session was set for 1pm on the day after we arrived. Our taxi wended it's way toward the studio that Tina liked to work at, which was conveniently located at the end of the street that she lived on. After putting a copy of the lyric on the music stand in front of the Neumann U67 microphone that she would be recorded with I sat down in the lounge looking at my copy of the lyric. The headphones were set and we had gotten a general level on the mic. At about 1:30 Tina walked through the door. She seemed a bit flustered. As I stood up to greet her she walked over to me and took my hand in hers. Her hands were shaking a bit. "I tried to cancel, but you were already on the plane!" I had always perceived Tina Turner as a tough and streetwise woman. If I had to describe how I thought of her in one word it would be "brave". She continued, "I don't know how to sing this song! This melody.... these chords.... I've never sung anything like this! I can't sing this song!" I hadn't thought of the possibility that Joan's musical language would put her in territory that was completely foreign to her. As I held her hands and stared into her eyes I saw the last thing that I expected to see... fear. My mind raced over the harmonic structure and melody of the song. I thought about all of the songs that Tina had sung and it all made sense. She was blues singer! She heard Joan's chords as "jazz chords" and Joan's harmonic motion and melodic sense was idiosyncratic and unusual. It should have come as no surprise that Tina felt completely out of her element.

"Brave". My one word sense of Tina flashed through my mind. "I'm going to teach you the song line by line, Tina.... I know that you can do this! I've got all the time in the world!" I felt her grip on my hands relax. "Let me tell you the story of this song... it'll help you sing it if you know the the story behind the poetry." Confidence started to come back into her eyes...

The big man arrives
Disco dancers greet him...