Joni Mitchell - Shine - Music & Performance - CD

I was talking to my neighbor, and he said, 'When I get to heaven...' is the kind of conversational lyric that made Joni Mitchell so incredibly unique. "This Place" is about valuing what matters, in the same way "Big Yellow Taxi" was two generations back. Half folk icon-half beat poet, Joni has been the intimate political voice of a several generations. She word paints, elides and shapes phrases in a way that is definitive of no one but herself. She is one of the few, unique and inspired artists who have created a style that is so often imitated as to have become a tradition unto itself. After such extravagant praise, any new music by such a venerable and venerated artist could disappoint. Happily, Joni Mitchell never does. Her latest record, one that fans feared would never come, is a meaningful, touching and brilliant as her most seminal and inspired work in the past. Shine is a work of art by a great artist.

Joni Mitchell plays most instruments on Shine. The opening track is an instrumental entitled "One Week Last Summer." This piece serves as an overture to a thoughtful and ethereal set of beautiful songs, supported by Bob Sheppard's stylish sax playing. The title track features Brian Blade's jazz drumming and James Taylor on guitar. While this is a deeply personal record overall, full of the sophistication and subtly that Joni Mitchell epitomizes, "Shine" is a simple and direct Sunday school song. The groove is from The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. It has a gospel feel that is tinged with quiet desperation. The heartrending bleakness of this tune is haunting. In many ways it reflects the tone of the entire record. It's no secret that Joni Mitchell is disturbed by the ways of the world. Like Thomas Merton, she's reclusive, insightful and strangely spiritual. Like Leonard Cohen she's the conscience of a generation in song.

Emotionally, the lyrical content of this record, her return from retirement for Starbuck's Hear Music label, is a reflection on her distress and forlorn hope for humanity. For any other singer/songwriter the emotional scope would be too vast. For Joni Mitchell, her flexible voice, sophisticated phrasing and lyrical deftness make a little more possible. When she sings, like the forlorn Tin Man, "If I had a heart I'd cry" she's both stoical and hopeful. Painted with a dark and blue tinged brush, the musical settings are stark and pointed. Mitchell's voice is as supple as ever. She sings without affectation or devices, intertwining stylish jazz melodies with Sheppard's cool jazz riffs, much as she did with Tom Scott.

While the bulk of the record is in the Night Ride Home and Hissing mode; jazz inflected with a nod toward Mingus and Monk in harmonic approach, the folk element is never far from Mitchell's music, both in the simple execution of her phrases and the directness of her delivery. Referencing the folk roots directly, Joni has re-recorded "Big Yellow Taxi." This is the only "remake" on the record, and it fits perfectly. Sounding like the voice of experience, "Taxi" is a dark reflection on worst dreams come true. In a bizarre way, since she's selling a record through a coffee shop chain, "Big Yellow Taxi" seems to cry out at the inevitable. While there's a meditative mood throughout the record, the whole effect is unsettling.