Joni Mitchell - Travelogue
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CD Details
Artist: Joni MitchellEdition: Music CD
Format: Enhanced
CD Release Date: 2002-11-19
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Otis and Marlena
- Amelia
- You Dream Flat Ties
- Love
- Woodstock
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- Judgement Of The Moon And Stars (Ludwig's Tune)
- The Sire Of Sorrow (Job's Sad Song)
- For The Roses
- Trouble Child
- God Must Be A Boogie Man
- Be Cool
- Just Like This Train
- Sex Kills
- Refuge Of The Roads
- Hejira
- Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody
- Cherokee Louise
- The Dawntreader
- The Last Time I Saw Richard
- Borderline
- The Circle Game
Music reviews of Travelogue
Music Review: Surely, some revelation is at hand
Rating: 5 Stars
Is there a finer practitioner of the travel song than Joni Mitchell? "Hejira," "Amelia," "Just Like This Train," "You Dream Flat Tires" - they're all here. And here, in one time capsule, the ultimate boomer excursion - weary, wired, weathered and inspired light years of living beyond the pop charts.
It's a sentimental journey but, as the set list suggests, not a complacent one. Down to the wire, Mitchell confronts her audience, expecting their brains as well as their hearts. (Now that Shine has come and gone, rather rapidly, alas, it's certain Travelogue caps Mitchell's dazzling career.) Like always, she will defy all hearts on the way to expressing hers.
The choices are good: avoiding most of the high-profile hits, Mitchell radically recasts some of her 'almost-masterpieces' and finally makes their case as classics. Sure, she could have sung "River" older and wiser and got everyone crying - but better to take the low-key "Last Time I Saw Richard" and give it the horrifying maturity it originally lacked. (For example, Mitchell initially 'saw' Richard [read: Chuck Mitchell] in 1968, reporting that in 1971. Now that it's 2002 and she truly sounds aged, the drama completely unfurls.)
Mitchell once mused in an interview she prefers Billie over Ella and, here, it's obvious why: Mitchell gives the microphone everything possible. Tracks like "Trouble Child" and "Refuge of the Roads" are simultaneously desolate and triumphant. While many vocalists have caught the joys of romance and love, Mitchell joins Sinatra in confronting the terrifying depths of maturity with all its unfulfilled excesses. Travelogue will not 'remind' its listeners of a 'certain time' in their life: it's too universal - too bewilderingly visceral - to be anyone's mere 'soundtrack.'
There's sublime stuff everywhere here - and that Mitchell so effectively sings lyrics she first wrote when she was in her Twenties conclusively demonstrates how brilliant her intuitions were at the time. But now, she has the voice that sounds as rugged and sage as her tunes always did. Reports of Mitchell's 'husky' [Salon] lower-octave voice should not be construed as any diminishing of her legendary vocal abilities: the desperate performances on "Judgment of the Moon and Stars" and "Sire of Sorrow" rank among rock's most incandescent, rousing moments. These are superhuman utterances.
Not to be underestimated are Mitchell's remarkable later compositions - many of them ("Love" and "Cherokee Louise") benefiting dramatically from the grander, high-definition arrangements. Praise is definitely due to the contributions Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, unmatched masters, whose uncanny, telepathic chops lift even slighter material (the jazzy, chatty "Be Cool") into the cosmos. Downer as most of Travelogue plays ("Sex Kills" is appropriately horrifying), it's nevertheless a narcotic flow bristling with sagacity and passion.
The 'hit singles' are the torched-up versions of "Just Like This Train" ("Sour grapes, I lost my heart," Joni scats totally outside, prompting Shorter to really go somewhere) and "You Dream Flat Tires" (Freudian martini musicmade extra jivey thanks to a corked Billy Preston Hammond B-3 workout), swing so slay fierce usurpers like Winehouse should cower in their go-go boots. Smack-out bliss, the highest wattage Mitchell performances ever, bittersweet brayings from rock & roll's sharpest, toughest, finest old broad.
So far (2008), Travelogue is first amongst of the best CDs of the decade. Not for nothing did Peter Townshend call it a "quantum masterpiece." (Plus lavish packaging - color booklet full of edifying, revealing Mitchell canvases.) Perhaps it was her reunification with "Little Green" that sparked this special performance flame. Special notice goes to Shorter, Mitchell's collaborator for over a decade, who always lifts and encircles the vocal line, unpredictably, and creates melodic magic even when quelling his sax. If there's stronger pop-jazz artistry operating in the 00's, its gotta be on some planet yet undiscovered.
Shoulda been a 3 CD set ("I Had A King," "That Song About The Midway," "Down To You," "Harry's House," "Blue Motel Room," "Paprika Plains [!]," "My Secret Place," "Sunny Sunday," "Face Lift" ...).
Description of Travelogue
A two CD set featuring 2002 recordings of songs from throughout her illustrious career, this time in the orchestrated style that made the 2000 release 'Both Sides Now' such a success. Guests artists include Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter & Kenny Wheeler. Deluxe digipak housed in a slipcase, includes two booklets plus enhanced CD content. Nonesuch.Travelogue finds the incomparable Joni Mitchell sticking to the orchestral format that worked so well on her 2000 album, Both Sides Now, where she took a series of American standards, hitched them up to a 70-piece orchestra, and gave them her own quirky twist. With Travelogue, however, she has applied that technique to her own back catalog. Recorded in London's Air Studios with an orchestra, 20-voice choir, and key players such as Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, this double CD offers moving reinterpretations of her most significant songs. There is "Woodstock," for instance, now sounding filmic and expansive, and "Hejira," softened by strings. Mitchell avoids schmaltz, however, with a rigorous, jazz-inspired approach. "God Must Be a Boogie Man," for instance, has a sense of Miles Davis's languid cool, while "For the Roses" sounds vibrant and edgy. On this record Mitchell explores memory and nostalgia, but without a hint of regret. --Lucy O'Brien
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