Led Zeppelin, John Paul Jones’ classic and feminist breakthrough

It is said that the bass is, in general, the most underrated instrument. Let’s take it John Paul Jones: brilliant multi-instrumentalist, excellent arranger, harmonic architect of one of the most powerful and mythological bands of the twentieth century; but of that same band, i Led Zeppelinis the least known. The collective imagination focuses on the charisma of Robert Plant, on the guitar of Jimmy Page and on the telluric energy of John Bonham, because Jones embodies a different figure: the cultured, disciplined musician, capable of moving between rock, blues, folk and orchestral music with an almost invisible naturalness.

Today, almost sixty years after Zeppelin’s debut, that “other” dimension clearly emerges in a project that marks a aesthetic and symbolic turning point: “Her Kind“, a cycle of pieces for voice and classical ensemble written for the mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly, presented at the Wigmore Hall in London. A work which not only marks Jones’s arrival at (so-called) classical music, but which places a constellation of female poetic voices at the centre, tackling themes such as identity, marginality and self-determination.

The classical vocation

Jones’s transition to cultured language it is not, in reality, a sudden conversion. Even before the global success of Led Zeppelin, his training was deeply rooted in written music: piano studies, experience as a church organist, arranger for pop and orchestral artists in the Sixties. Even within the band, his contribution went far beyond the electric bass: keyboards, mandolins, orchestral arrangements, complex modal structures.

However, rock – especially rock full of virility, power and mythology like that of Zeppelin – has long hidden this dimension more intimate and reflective. With “Her Kind”, Jones frees himself from the iconic weight of the past, choosing a form that favors the word, the vocal timbre and the listening: the song cycleone of the most demanding and refined genres of the classical tradition.

The female gaze

The title of the work refers to a poem by Anne Sexton (a reflection on the role of women in society), a key figure in American confessional poetry, but the project includes multiple authors: Carol Ann Duffy (with the poem “Pygmalion’s Bride”, which overturns the Greek myth by giving voice to the statue that wishes to remain cold to escape the attentions of its creator), Angela Carter (with “Morning Glory,” a vivid portrait of an older woman), Maya Angelou (“Phenomenal Woman”, which closes the work with a powerful and proud tone). This is not a neutral selection: the voices called into question share a writing that questions the roles assigned to womengiving space to subjectivities considered eccentric, uncomfortable, outside the box.

The protagonists of the texts are not muses or idealized figures, but women who speak in the first person: modern witches, trapped brides, bodies judged, identities claimed. In this sense, the nature of a project like “Her Kind” is clear feministeven if Jones avoids presenting it as an ideological manifesto: he says he was guided by the strength of these words, which describe the female universe with a “burning intensity“.

Why Sarah Connolly

Sarah Connolly she is among the most authoritative mezzo-sopranos on the international scene. Connolly is famous for his ability to blend technical rigor and dramatic intensity, indispensable qualities for a cycle in which the voice is the main narrative vehicle.

In “Her Kind,” Connolly doesn’t simply interpret lyrics: he embodies them. Jones’ vocal writing avoids gratuitous virtuosity and favors an expressive, tense, angular declamation, which dialogues with the ensemble in an almost theatrical. The result is a music that does not seek immediate melodic seduction, but a form of emotional truthconsistent with the strength of the lyrics.

From Zeppelin to Schoenberg

Musically, “Her Kind” falls into hybrid territory. Jones explicitly looks at the twentieth-century tradition of Pierrot ensemble, that is, the ensemble composed of flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano which takes its name from Arnold Schönberg’s “Pierrot lunaire” (which includes the quintet of instruments with a narrator). The references to Schoenberg are evident, but he does not rigidly adopt his systems. Distant echoes of his emerge here and there rock experience — some attention to grooveto sound stratification — but always filtered through disciplined writing.

This choice divided the critics: some praised the courage and coherence of the formal structure, others noted a certain emotional distance, as if the music, in some moments, held back the dramatic explosion implicit in the lyrics. But this unresolved tension seems to be part of the project: “Her Kind” does not console, does not simplify, does not offer immediate answers. And maybe this one too enigmaticity it is part of the “Zeppelinian” legacy.