The Joy of Joni Mitchell: Hejira feel the love at Jazz Cafe

So tightly-packed was the crowd for Hejira’s first gig of 2024 that the place could probably have sold out for three nights. Yet for most of the evening you could have heard a pin drop: they came to listen because they love Joni Mitchell, the artist whose work is this band’s raison d’être. But they went away loving Hejira.

Any half-decent tribute act might have provided these Mitchell fans with an enjoyable night out. Hejira, however, have the potential to become a cult. There were hints of this in the wild reception given to mild-mannered bassist Dave Jones, the long-unsung titan of Pastorius-style fretless bass, who suddenly finds himself blinking in the spotlight. Likewise, the band’s more flamboyant leader, Metheny-esque guitarist Pete Oxley, who has been at it just as long, but has evolved into a funny and engaging frontman. 

The real star, of course, is Hattie Whitehead, whose task is to sing the songs and play rhythm guitar. And here we come to the nub of Hejira’s quality: no two ways about it, Whitehead is one of the greatest singers I have ever heard. Not just in vocal tone, range, accuracy, enunciation, and sheer confidence, but in interpretation: despite her aura of self-contained cool, she brilliantly wrings the ragged emotions out of Mitchell’s tunes.

For much of the time this was a quiet performance. You know these are jazz musicians, because they give each other space, and everyone had their moment to shine, from the dramatic drums-and-percussion battle between Rick Finlay and Marc Cecil to the Breckerish solos of Ollie Weston. Only keyboards man Chris Eldred seemed a little under-used: there is more gas in this tank, for sure.

Amid the expected favourites – ‘Coyote’, ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, ‘A Case of You’, ‘Woodstock’ (done as a slow, haunting ballad) – they also played Metheny’s ‘Phase Dance’, and an Oxley instrumental called ‘Surging Waves’, a rampaging samba that was one of the best things of the night.