test blog 5

Dog Eat Dog , 1985 Front Cover We've reached a milestone: a Joni Mitchell album I don't like. No, that's a cop out. It's not merely that I don't like Dog Eat Dog . It's that Dog Eat Dog is not good. It's a really bad album. All musicians, all artists, create clunkers sometimes -- especially if they're experimenting and expanding. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, David Byrne -- musical giants all, and all have released albums that aren't very good. And although it pains me to write this, Joni is not the exception. I stopped reading David Yaffe's biography of Joni while I was writing this blog series, so I don't know the history behind Dog Eat Dog . (I will go back and finish the book.) I don't know if Joni was pressured to try a more commercial sound, or if she genuinely wanted this album to sound and feel the way it does, or if perhaps the final result didn't reflect her intentions. The overall effect is t...

Wild Things Run Fast , 1982 Front Cover Wild Things Run Fast feels like the beginning of a new Joni era. Mingus ended a trajectory. After Mingus , Joni toured, and took a break from recording. From now on she would release an album every three or four years, rather than annually as she once did. For me, Wild Things is an easy album to enjoy. It's tuneful and accessible, Joni's voice velvety over well-honed pop-jazz. With the opening notes of the first track, "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody", you know you're in familiar territory, reminiscent of Hissing and Hejira , but simplified and streamlined. Back Cover I wonder if this lady has a hole in her stockings. "Chinese Cafe" laments lost youth, and the lost landmarks of youth, the paved-over paradise, not with a deep sadness, just a wistfulness, an acceptance. Joni sings to an old friend, as she did in "Song for Sharon". Careful listeners, hearing My child's a stranger, I bore her, but I co...

Mingus , 1979 Mingus is unique in Joni's work, in that she wrote lyrics to someone else's instrumental music. Four of the six tracks on Mingus were written collaboratively by Joni and Charles Mingus. Charles Mingus was a jazz composer and band leader. He was enormously influential, and anyone following contemporary jazz music would have known his work. But it's doubtful whether in 1979 most Joni Mitchell fans even knew his name, let alone recognized his music. In the late 1970s, Mingus had ALS and was failing physically. He reached out to Joni, and they began a long-distance friendship. After about a year, he asked Joni to write lyrics to a group of songs he had composed. The full story of how the collaboration began is more complex, but it wasn't known at the time. Mingus died before the album was finished, although he did hear finished versions of most of the songs. Mingus is another step on the jazz path Joni began with Court and Spark , and which became a greater...

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter , 1977 I discovered I didn't own Don Juan's Reckless Daughter  either on LP or CD -- which means I don't know the music from it, except for anything performed live or on compilations. This means I have only my current opinions and impressions, and no earlier thoughts to compare them to. I can conjecture that I wouldn't have liked this album when it was released in 1977, or in 1987 for that matter, because I wouldn't have understood it. I hope by 1997, when I was beginning to explore jazz, I would have been ready to listen. It is jazz. And it is Joni. I like it a lot, and I can tell that repeated listenings will yield more meaning. On DJRD Joni works with a group of jazz artists, including four members of the Weather Report ensemble -- Jaco Pastorius (who was already Joni's friend and collaborator), Wayne Shorter, Manolo Badrena, and Alex Acuña. The first track, "Overture," is played on six guitars in different tunings ...

When we were negotiating for this house, through realtors, the former owners asked if we were interested in keeping their piano. I had noticed the old upright as soon as we walked in, and I immediately said an enthusiastic yes. (They also had a beautiful grandfather clock, but they weren't interested in leaving that!) A friend asked if either of us play. I said, short answer, I used to. Here's the full answer. Piano of childhood I grew up with a beautiful baby grand, a gorgeous instrument that had been my grandmother's, and was then my mother's. My mother played Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes, and classical music, and some random things like Cole Porter and the easier Gershwin tunes. I loved to sit beside her on the piano bench and turn the pages, and sing along to the show tunes. South Pacific  and  Oklahoma  were favourites. Her big Rodgers and Hammerstein song book had an image from the movies for each song. I can easily see them in my mind. My siblings and I eac...

Allan and I have been greatly anticipating "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story", the new film by Martin Scorsese released this week on Netflix. When "The Last Waltz" opened at Radio City Music Hall in 1978, I was a senior in high school. My friends and I skipped school and snuck into the city to see it. About 10 years later, Allan and I saw it together (he for the first time) and it became a touchstone of our relationship. These days, rearranging work schedules to watch a movie is no longer an option, but we waited until we were both available and could watch this film together. I loved it. The film is a joy from start to finish. I'm sure I will watch it again and again, and future viewing will reveal more to delight, enlighten, obscure, befuddle, and entertain. Here are some reasons why. 1. Dylan then. His stage persona is warm, forceful, and passionate. The songs he has chosen are socially engaged. His voice has never been better. He seems relaxed, happy...

Hejira , 1976 Front Cover Photo by Norman Seeff; Frozen lake by Wisconsin. Hejira snuck up on me. I heard it was "wordy," "cold," and "cerebral" and that the music was "abstract". I didn't know what that meant, but it didn't seem good. On the radio station I listened to as a teenager, one of the last holdouts of independent rock radio, "Song for Sharon" had heavy rotation. That's no surprise, as it's a thoroughly New York City song. I would hear it in the background, when I was driving or doing homework, and catch bits of lyrics: Staten Island, skyline, Bleecker Street, " eighteen bucks went up in smoke ". Then there was a video. No idea how or where I saw that, as MTV was still several years in the future, but the video of "Amelia" caught my imagination. Amelia Earhart is a lifelong fascination of mine; even at that age, I had a crush on her. Now it seemed that Joni, fascination numero uno, was also...

The Hissing of Summer Lawns , 1975 Front and back covers: The landscapes of the songs Joni's seventh studio album (her ninth album overall) is both a continuation and a departure.  The Hissing of Summer Lawns is rich and multi-layered, somewhat enigmatic, full of interesting images and sounds that are open to interpretation. When I'm in a certain mood, this becomes my favourite of all Joni's albums, surpassing even Court and Spark in my imagination, flooring me with its beauty and complexity. Musically, on this album Joni continues to bring more jazz arrangements to her songs. But she also begins something new: the music is used very sparingly, sometimes only for rhythm, while the melody is carried by only one instrument, Joni's voice. This is most pronounced in some of the album's most memorable numbers: "Edith and the Kingpin," "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow," "Shades of Scarlett Conquering," and "The Boho Dance". Listen ...

In July, I wrote that we planned to get rid of our LP collection. Well, the deed is done. We turned this into this first round then this What's left: classical, soundtracks, CD box sets, and albums Allan didn't want to part with (front). and finally, this. We got much more money than we expected, thanks to the honesty and integrity of Lincoln Stewart. * * * * For the most part, the business of buying used LPs and CDs is a bit shady, a half-step up from a scam. When Allan was a music critic, we used to trade CDs for cash on a regular basis. We got those CDs for free and they meant nothing to us, so whatever the buyer -- the owner of the used record store -- wanted to give us was free money. The buyer would make a few piles, and say, "Five dollars each for these, three dollars for these, and a buck apiece for these." It was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. We never knew what they would sell the CDs for. With our LPs, it was very different. This was a personal collec...

In my most recent Listening to Joni post, I said that I write with my brain, but I listen to music with my heart. A few nights ago in New York City, my music heart broke in pieces, over and over again. I've seen a lot of theatre -- and quite a bit of Bruce Springsteen -- but I'd never experienced anything quite like this. Springsteen on Broadway is one of the most intensely moving theatrical experiences I've ever had. The show starts with humour, both Springsteen's typical self-deprecating humour, but also a satirical bragging -- the guy who has never held a job in his life, singing about the workingman, the guy who has never driven one block singing about cars: "That's how good I am." Sometimes the humour is just a facial expression and a hand gesture -- which plays perfectly for the tiny 900-seat house. But the humour soon gives way to a raw intensity. Springsteen relieves the tension with the occasional laugh, but by that time, the audience is chucklin...