Joni Mitchell: Don Juan's Reckless Daughter - 1977

 

This was a somewhat sprawling, very experimental acquired taste of a double album here from Joni.

It was made so, to a great extent, by the side long and possibly indulgent (only in places, I might add) of Paprika Plains, which is probably eight or so minutes too long, at sixteen of them. I love the superb rock drums and clarinet bit fourteen minutes in though! Knock eight minutes off and you have a great track.

Mitchell said of it -

"....the Improvisational, the spontaneous aspect of this creative process – still as a poet – is to set words to the music, which is a hammer and chisel process. Sometimes it flows, but a lot of times it's blocked by concept. And if you're writing free consciousness – which I do once in a while just to remind myself that I can, you know, because I'm fitting little pieces of this puzzle together – the end result must flow as if it was spoken for the first time...."

Ok, now I get it, Joni 😕

Other than this, the music largely continues in the same vein as its predecessor, although the emphasis is more on noodly, improvised jazz stylings and rhythmic innovations than before. Jaco Pastorius is still on bass, however, which is never a bad thing. 

Overall I prefer the more concise, cohesive vibe of Hejira, but I have to concede that there are several hidden depths to be found within this album's detailed tapestries that demand repeated listens. Overture - Cotton Avenue is an excellent, jazzy and sleepy opener that builds on the sound found on Hejira. Jericho is beautifully jazzy in that smoky, late night bassy fashion that Joni and her musicians do so well. 

Otis And Marlena is an intriguing track, as is Talk To Me, and Joni's musicians dabble in African rhythms on the intoxicating The Tenth World - a track that can't really be credited to Mitchell - and also on the excellent Aboriginal-inspired Dreamland (that features Chaka Khan on vocals). Paul Simon must have been influenced by this, surely? Even Joni's phrasing and vocal delivery sounds like him. 

The vaguely Dylan and Van Morrison-esque stream of consciousness Don Juan's Reckless Daughter is a fine track too, as is the gently seductive Off Night Backstreet, with its sumptuous bass line. The Silky Veils Of Ardour see a return to Joni backed by a lone guitar in the style of some of her material from the early seventies. 

A notable thing that becomes apparent on this album in particular is just how much her voice has changed over the years - it is now much deeper, more mature and has lost that up and down/high and low thing that she used so much in the early days. 

Overall, the jazzy expressiveness that would be given free rein on Mingus, two years later, began here, for sure. It is probably worth saying that this album was released at the height of punk. A more incongruous offering you couldn't hope to hear - but it is a thoroughly intriguing one.