Well, I've slaved through the whole damn thing, and my overriding response is a wish that Mr Mendoza had been shown the red card before the project got the green light. As I've heard more and listened at higher volume, the arrangements have seemed, increasingly, to be meretricious in the extreme, flattering to deceive. Sadly, my experience of his labours with BSN was that I liked them LESS every time I heard them! My gut feeling is that Travelogue will not reverse this process. As TLTISW ground to a halt, I thought to myself that Joni's piano and vocal version of this song on Blue was infinitely more eloquent than this elephantine plod.
Someone (one of the other Doubting Thomases) also flagged Wayne Shorter's contributions as a major irritant, and I have to agree wholeheartedly: to these ears they add nothing whatsoever. And I admit it, I couldn't bring myself to listen to this version of Hejira to the end. The greatest song on the greatest album of all time, desecrated by the arrangement and rendered pitiful by the weakness of the singing. Obviously, some of you will be thinking "jeez, has he been listening to the same record I've heard?" just as I've read some of the glowing reviews thinking exactly the same thing. Vive la difference. Joni's still the greatest; this album, for this listener, is a disaster. Azeem in London
