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12/10/2004 Joni Mitchell revisited
Paul Martin writes:
Funnily enough, I listened to Blue the other day for the first time in ages and fell in love with it again - not for the maudlin self-involvement but for the musical and lyrical inventiveness, and the self-mockery that so many professional and amateur critics missed from the start. Despite some great songs ('River', and especially 'A Case Of You'), it's not one of my absolute favourite Joni albums; that ranking goes to her first, Song To A Seagull, stunning songs in a thankfully sparse production setting, courtesy of David Crosby and, getting to the point of your site's discussion, her sublime couple of albums from 1975 and 1976, The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira - so different, texture-wise, but so related. She'd started experimenting with jazz forms and voicings on For The Roses (still quite 'folky'), Court and Spark (her so-called 'rock-n-roll' album) and especially on the 1974 tour with Tom Scott and the LA Express - heard on the Miles of Aisles live album, with great jazz-inflected renditions of 'You Turn Me On I'm A Radio' and particularly the incomparable 'Both Sides Now'. But I think it was on Lawns and Hejira that she really started to investigate jazz seriously - explicitly, Jon Hendricks's 'Centerpiece' on the former and the gorgeous 'Blue Hotel Room' on the latter. And throughout these two albums you have the superlative melodic/harmonic electric bass of the one and only Jaco Pastorius, who was also on the overblown and wayward double LP, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter - terrific title track, mind. And he was one of the kingpins of Joni's one true shot at "a jazz album," Mingus (1979), where the colossal but dying bassist-composer asked her to write lyrics for some of his pieces: well, I think the lady, recovering from the initial terror, did old Charles proud, with the fun of 'Dry Cleaner From Des Moines' and, very especially, the delicious Lester Young tribute, 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat'. To appreciate some of this to the full, I urge you to get hold of the recently-released DVD of the Shadows and Light tour (Santa Monica concert), issued as a double LP in 1979 and a double CD a few years ago, but now finally on DVD, and with the terrific addition of a barnstorming 'Raised On Robbery' (from Court And Spark) - and she's backed by what I've always called 'the impossible band', Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Mike Brecker, Jaco Pastorius and Don Alias. How many other 'stars', in or out of jazz, could have brought together a band like that, regardless of the money? Now? It seems Geffen Records recently released a 4CD set of the albums she recorded for them, but, frankly, ho hum. Worse, she has overseen two new compilations that really add very little to the Hits and Misses CDs she herself wittily compiled a few years ago. Of the two recent orchestral albums, well, I have to say I find Both Sides Now brilliant and enchanting in its concept of combining jazz standards with Mitchell's own songs in a different musical setting and a strictly narrative thread; while I find the 2CD re-reading of her own songs, Travelogue, frankly a bit excessive, partly because Joni and I never have agreed on what are her best songs, partly because I really think she could have accomplished the exercise in one single CD.
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