I haven't read the VV in years, and they are as snide as I remember. How many people realize that Joni has released "boring classical records?"
No Regrets, Coyote Symphony Space's Wall to Wall Joni Mitchell event ran from 11 to 11 last Saturday, from the bright Chelsea morning to the night ride home, longer than a Danny Tenaglia DJ set, and because the Voice doesn't pay me by the hour, I don't have an opinion about half of it. Until now, Symphony Space had reserved the "Wall to Wall" treatment for the Bachs and Ellingtons of the world. Mitchell is the first pop songwriter to have her jersey raised to the Space's rafters, but at times, Saturday's ceremony seemed designed to honor her as everything but; representatives from jazz and folk and opera claimed Mitchell's catalog in the name of big-C "culture," a rather blinkered stance to take toward an artist who has worked with Billy Idol and Cheech and Chong, and a thumb of the snoot to those of us who still file her records, even the boring classical ones, under "Rock/M." Performers who chose to navigate the hills and switchbacks of Mitchell's catalog like fans, not curators, fared best. Suzzy Roche introduced "A Case of You" by saying she hadn't sung Joni in public since her seventh-grade talent show, where she placed fourth; when she finished, she stomped her feet in triumph. Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar Chamber Arkestra rendered "The Jungle Line"a Burundi banger from 1975's The Hissing of Summer Lawns, and Joni-fanatic Prince's favoriteas abstruse and barbed as Rammellzee's autograph. And poetry ambassador Bob Holman (backed by poets Jackie Sheeler and Vicki Hudspith, and a three-piece North Jersey alt-rock band) turned 114 of Mitchell's lines into a megamix called "Jonicento," cracking, "By the time we got to Woodstock, they put up a parking lot!" Goofy but sincere, Holman's crew honored Mitchell's oeuvre better than anyone else, treating it like a river of words on which to skate, and staggered off like they'd just split a case of the good stuff. Alex Pappademas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Deb Messling -^..^- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------------
