Joni Mitchell – Shine / Herbie Hancock – River: The Joni Letters
Shine is Joni Mitchell’s first new collection of songs in nine years, and she’s apparently been feeding her muse with boatfuls of bile about mall-bound yokels who yack into their cell phones while remaining oblivious to the fact that men keep waging war and that money, cars, and other evils are making the world go foul. She also reminds us that she was onto the ecology in distress long before Al Gore by crafting a jaunty reprise of 1970’s prescient “Big Yellow Taxi”, a move which inadvertently calls attention to the fact that her new songs are heavy on polemics and short on poetry. Not to mention melody. Mitchell’s piano dominates, and that’s a problem, as her ponderous progressions and earnest arrangements are rarely in support of a memorable tune. “Shine” is a seven-minute laundry list of obvious gripes framed by a dull and languid musical backdrop. “Strong And Wrong” (“History…/A mass-murder mystery…/His story) and “This Place” (“Money, money, money…Money makes the trees come down”) are similarly leaden, both lyrically and musically. Shine does have some bright spots. “If I Had A Heart” broods with righteous indignation, while on “Hana”, Mitchell deftly sketches a woman with spunk and spirit. “Night Of The Iguana” finds a heady brew of guitars underscored by Brian Blades’ terrific drumming. Best of all is “If”, an adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling poem that rides on the rhythms of Mitchell’s nimbly-picked guitar and is good enough to have been on Hejira. It’s a pity the whole album isn’t informed by the wisdom of the final verse: “If you can fill the journey of a minute with sixty seconds worth of wonder and delight, then the earth is yours.” Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters puts real jazz into Mitchell’s bohemian oeuvre, with the sophisticated interplay of Hancock’s acoustic piano and Wayne Shorter’s saxophones suggesting the unity of words and music that defines Mitchell’s best work. The album’s guest list of singers includes Norah Jones (on a breathy “Court And Spark”), Corrine Bailey Rae (on a depthless “River”), and Leonard Cohen (reciting “The Jungle Line”). Mitchell herself turns in the collection’s best vocal on “Tea Leaf Prophecy” — except maybe for Tina Turner, who simmers elegantly through “Edith And The Kingpin”. But Hancock and Shorter are the real stars, with searching solos encased in understated arrangements, and stunning instrumentals, including a reharmonized interpretation of “The Circle Game” that goes round and round and sounds like no other.