Back for more in the 'respectfully we agree to disagree" catagory... I find it a tad humorous and ironic that long standing Joni fans would criticize Tlog for being a dirge. As it's been perceptively mentioned recently, that's been the public's complaint for 30 plus years running. Where we hear beauty, most americans hear that depressing woman shlogging along with weary voice overwhelming their ears with words. -I would have expected this crowd would be immune to the idea Joni as a slug... being so familiar with her tempo. I wonder how you guys can listen to the old stuff not wishing she'd pick up a little... I don't recall my snapping fingers to Song to a Seagull.
For the vast majority of America, Joni selecting 22 songs from her catalogue and coming up with something dirgeful is like shooting ducks in a barrel. She could close her eyes and 19 of the 22 wouldn't 'swing.' Hell, she never 'swung' anyway. The woman is too quirky to rock in the manner of others. When she has... let's see, hmmmmmm... Lead Balloon, Ray Dad's Cadillac, and the much, much loved Dancing Clown. -Joni, swing? As a matter of fact, where the pace has picked up in the last few years, it's largely out of collaboration with other musicians to give the thing some tempo, or it's been a cover. If anything Tlog is a triumph of Joni finally getting it right and actually learning to. Every jazz number here pops and sparkles as her internal rhythms and voice instrument have finally made the complete journey into the realm of Jazz. Imagine what we would have in our hands if Charlie Mingus handed those six melodies to her last year as opposed to handing them to the youthful, experimenting singer back when. With the present musicianship, and her refined skills.... WOOOOOW. Can you imagine pork pie hat in present voice? Or the delicious play of rhythmic pause and melodic drops she'd throw into Dry Cleaners now? As to the hits and misses on Tlog, we're certainly into personal tastes here. Some of you love the present Hejira. The best I can bring myself to is 'it's ok.' One thing I wanted the songs to do was have enough difference in arrangement from the originals that the songs take on new colors, new meanings and different emotional, visual spins. That's what is so compelling about Case of You and BSN on the last cd. There's enough coloration and difference of approach that the songs come alive in a whole new context. The maturity of the woman colors the song and Mendoza's arrangements allow that to happen. Perhaps I should underline that last part... By comparison to those two, on Tlog Hejira simply rolls in as a cover. None of her post Hejira Hejira covers shine anywhere near the sparkle of the original recording. Those that come close are when she delivers it as straight to the original as possible. There's an insular sound to the original recording. It's that rolling figure she's strumming with the chord changes that is the heart of it. Snowflakes falling in a surreal landscape of self reflection and movement. -All the salsa dressings and other add ons since then work against the heart of this lanquid melody. It defies all catagory of music and is nothing BUT Joni. The new recording offers nothing new to the emotional perspective of the original. It's simply a cover. And where many of you went gaga over Hejira and I didn't, many of you dislike Just Like this Train and I did like it. I love it, in fact. I don't find the emotional colors are any different from the original. Just heightened. In the original, the song is of a woman weary from the ordeal of relationships who manages to 'let her hair down' and enjoy a moment of simple pleasures found on a long train ride. (Home? Up to Canada for retreat?) The 'ease' of the moment is conveyed more by the freely dispersed chords of the song than it is by Joni's voice. This song was definitely a favorite for , "Ooooohh, listen to the way those chords come in!!! -So relaxed and easy. On CandS, Joni is too busy setting up the story to let her hair down vocally. On tlog, not only has the music found it's ease, but Joni has as well. The new slur of the melodic line upwards on "just like this train" says, "Look folks, I'm enjoying myself here." And Brian Blade and company, especially Brian Blade gives it just the right polish of upbeat, easy listening ease. This song is like a french apperitif. I don't think it's fussy at all. It is Joni's version of champagne ease, all gilded and plush and with lightness of heart. That's what I hear anyway. As for Sex Kills, I tepidly like the original. I always found it lacking for a more personal context to convey the kind of emotional statement the song was trying for. To put the song into the context of someone being "angry", the words are too impersonal for the character of the singer to be upfront. I mean geez, the most important health threat to mankind in a thousand years and it's reduced to a brief "and sex kills?" I've watched too many friends die horrible deaths to see the subject come up only on the clip end of a line. In the new setting on Tlog, I enjoy the song more because it ISN'T an individual angry, upfront and defiant. The lumbering bombast of the new version has the feeling of an old Cecil B. Demille (sp.) film. I get the feeling and image that behind the particulars of the voice that is all complaints, there is the backdrop of a wave of 'illness' in many forms sweeping across the plains of the nation like a marching army decending on the peoples of western civillization. Like the fall of Rome. And when she ends with the long "Sex Keeeeeeeeeeeilllls" that panorama converges forward and meets with her voice in an extended wail for all the suffering that is. It conveys a more respectful feeling of hurt, and sense loss for the fate of Wally and so many, many good people. The sex kills part is no longer a glib clip to my ears. -so I have to respectfully diagree with you on this one Bobbo. (And that's not easy for me, as you are lord god among the masses.) I think this effort, as startlingly clunky as using Demille might be, lends itself to a more effective deliverance of the song. Many of the songs on the second disk fail in comparison to the first because they aren't removed enough from their original context. -Not because they are slow. You want slow, go back and listen to Fiddle and the Drum. That's slow. Btw, on the Don Juan's cover, didn't we read somewhere that Joni's Art Director on that album picked the colors and not her? I will answer that with a yes.
