Joni Mitchell’s Latest Trip to the Vaults Yields Treasures
After years in the spotlight, some musicians release a one- or two-CD best-of collection or even a career-spanning box.
Joni Mitchell has been so prolific over so many decades and so artistically and commercially successful that her record label decided that wouldn’t be nearly enough. Nor would even one series of box sets suffice. During the last few years, Rhino Records has been simultaneously issuing two such series.
The first offers remasters of her previously issued LPs and has so far resulted in The Reprise Albums (1968–1971), The Asylum Albums (1972–1975), and The Asylum Albums (1976–1980). The second, Joni Mitchell Archives, consists solely of previously unreleased live and studio material. To date, it has included Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963–1967), Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968–71), Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972–1975), and the new Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976–1980).
Since fans were already familiar with the recordings in the first series, it’s not surprising that the Archivesreleases are of greater current interest. What is somewhat surprising is that the new Vol. 4 is at least as good as any of its terrific predecessors. Though Mitchell’s late-seventies studio albums sold respectably, Hejira, Mingus, and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter didn’t achieve anywhere near the popularity of many of her earlier releases, three of which earned Platinum certification. Nor did these later albums – which find Mitchell moving much closer to jazz than folk – receive as much critical praise. Rolling Stone, for example, called Hejira “mysteriously vague” and respectively labeled Mingus (a collaboration with jazz great Charles Mingus) and Don Juan “sketchy at best” and “stilted.”
In this writer’s view, however, those albums were all underrated. Moreover, it turns out that a lot of spectacular stuff was sitting in the vaults. You’ll find it in Vol. 4, which delivers 98 tracks on six CDs and has a playing time of just over seven hours. It features demos, outtakes, abundant concert material, and contributions from Mingus as well as such other jazz artists as Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, and Jaco Pastorius.
Like its predecessors, this box includes an illustrated booklet with the text of a substantive recent conversation between Mitchell and journalist and filmmaker Cameron Crowe. She tells him, for example, why she fell in love with the word “Hejira,” how she came to write “Furry Sings the Blues,” and how she wanted to approach jazz.
Among the musical goodies in the box are a 1978 set from the Bread & Roses Festival in Berkeley, California; what appears to be a complete 1979 concert from Long Island, New York’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium; extensive outtakes and alternate versions from the Mingus sessions; demos and session tracks for Hejira; and an improvised 12-minute solo piano piece called “Save Magic” that would evolve into Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter’s “Paprika Plains.”
Some of the box’s standouts are live readings of songs from albums that predate this period. There are, for instance, fine renditions of Blue’s “The Last Time I Saw Richard” and “A Case of You”; Court and Spark’s “Free Man in Paris,” “Just Like This Train,” “Raised on Robbery,” and “Help Me”; and Ladies of the Canyon’s “For Free,” “Rainy Night House,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” and “Woodstock.”
But much of the best material consists of versions of songs that appeared on those often-overlooked late-seventies albums, and some of these tracks pack a greater punch than the previously known renditions. An alternate studio take of “Dreamland” from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter is gorgeous, for example, and a live reading, with congas, succeeds with a dramatically different approach. Other memorable cuts include “Traveling,” an early version of Hejira’s title cut; and two readings of the same album’s “Amelia” and “Coyote,” the latter in its debut performance in Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue.
Throughout, you’ll be reminded not only of the excellence and adventurousness of Mitchell’s songwriting but of her immense capabilities as a vocalist. If you’re a fan, you need this box.
A Multi-Label Retrospective from Jazz Giant Jelly Roll Morton
If you stacked up all the Jelly Roll Morton anthologies, they could stretch from here to the moon.
OK, like the pianist and composer, who often claimed to have “invented” jazz, I exaggerate – but not by all that much. The New Orleans–born Creole bandleader, a relentless self-promoter, didn’t singlehandedly create his genre, but he was among its earliest and most influential proponents and was arguably its first great composer. And while a pile of his compendiums couldn’t reach the moon, there are dozens and dozens of them.
The latest is the two-volume A Career Anthology, and it’s one of the best. Each volume is a three-CD set, with one devoted to work from 1923 to 1928 and the other focused on recordings issued from 1929 to 1940. Together, they offer 142 tracks and more than seven hours of music.
Despite their extensive programs, these discs don’t quite embrace everything in Morton’s catalog. Unlike the excellent The Jelly Roll Morton Centennial: His Complete Victor Recordings, for example, A Career Anthology doesn’t make room for alternate takes. Nor does it feature the performances and interviews that musicologist Alan Lomax recorded in 1938 at the Library of Congress.
That said, if you’re looking for a comprehensive, all-in-one-place overview of Morton’s catalog, which draws on ragtime, blues, and marching and minstrel music, you’ll find A Career Anthology hard to beat. It collects material from multiple labels, including Victor, Bluebird, Paramount, General, Vocalion, and more, and includes solo piano performances as well as releases by all his major groups, among them the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, the Red Hot Peppers, the Orchestra and Jazz Band, and the Kings of Jazz, to name a few.
It begins with his earliest recordings; covers his peak period from 1926 to 1930, during which he played with some of the biggest names in early jazz; and includes the relatively little-known sides he made shortly before his 1941 death. All his key numbers are here, including such virtuosic, spirited performances as “Jelly Roll Blues,” “Black Bottom Stomp,” “King Porter Stomp,” “Shreveport Stomp,” “The Pearls,” and “Midnight Mama.” Such tracks are essential components in any wide-ranging jazz collection.
Jeff Burger’s website, byjeffburger.com, contains five decades’ worth of music reviews, interviews, and commentary. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters.
