Joni's voice JC

[William Chavez]

With all this talk about Joni's singing for weeks, I think that some of what some people consider a poor vocal performance to be intentional by Joni. Being a lover of women singers with low voices and voices with a lot of CHARACTER, I latch on to all the imperfections. I'm often surprised that I love singers like Judy Collins or Ella Fitzgerald because their voices are almost too perfect. I probably like them because despite their perfect voices they still have good interpretation skills (it's rare to find both in a singer). Imperfection is what makes people like Bruce S., Stevie Nicks, Patty Smith, BILLY HOLIDAY, etc... so appealing to me (vocal imperfections tend to add character in my book). It makes them very HUMAN. I love it when Joni is slowly descending with a vocal line that is almost not audible. I love it when she is about to do a fade at the end of a phrase and her vocals come in and out throughout the bottom part of the wave. Sometimes you might hear some air rushing out but definitely nothing you could ID as a vocal sound. Yes, a lot of this is due to a declining voice for whatever reason, but do you really think Joni didn't listen to her vocals before she put out this project. Absolutely she did!!!!!!!!! She has got to be very well aware of what she sounds like and my take is that she likes what she hears. We are talking about someone who prefers Holiday(late period) over Fitzgerald. She gravitates towards interpretation over technique, and limited vocal ranges over seemingly unlimited ones. I listen to this project knowing one thing, that her vocal delivery is ALL intentional. Wherever she felt she couldn't reach a not in some places, she changed the melody line. In other places she went for it because the seemingly failed attempt sounded valid to her. Sure we are still free to dislike it, but my guess is it was all done intentionally(the vocals). The orchestration may have fallen short in some places, even to Mitchell's ears, but this is a part she has less control over. She can only try her best to get them to play what she is feeling or hearing in her head and most of the times this is difficult to convey. This is something that is better worked out once you are out on the road and the musicians start taking liberties with the music to try and make the monotony of playing the same thing more interesting. To be a total musical tyrant and not allow Mendoza and Klein some room to express, despite the outcome, would be very un-jazz like. I think vocal technique and sounding perfect has little to do with what Joni is trying to do here. It's all about a human interpretation through the eyes of someone who is declining in some ways and growing in others(an "old sage" if you will). You don't get to be an old sage without physical, psychological and emotional changes. It would be an error to hide such changes that are vital to who you are. One thing that does strike me as odd is that she has shifted towards this jazz standards type of music because she wanted to dedicate all of her senses towards her vocal delivery(not necessarily improve technique). She once stated that her songs had become too wordy for her to do this effectively. What I find odd is that in several places she has added extra words to her original lines giving her less space than before to interpret vocally. She has created more space by slowing down the songs and some of the word changes and additions have really changed the feel to certain sentences, so I'm sure this was also intentional (despite the slight loss of singing space).

For those of you who might think that Joni might be upset with some of the negative things that people have said, on and off the list, and feel obligated to defend her, I wouldn't spend much of this mis guided energy. I think that the only thing that Joni doesn't like about the negative press is the loss of potential sales. When you compare controversy over sales, I would bet she would take the controversy. There is nothing that Joni likes better than to say that those who initially put down her work most times turn around and say how important and influential it has become (her superiority complex is definetly one of the reasons why I find her so interesting). It makes her feel like she is definitely ahead of the game and on some elevated platform where there is really only room enough for her.
Will

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