From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2014 #1101 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Unsubscribe:mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe Website:http://jonimitchell.com JMDL Digest Monday, August 18 2014 Volume 2014 : Number 1101 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- [none] ["johncalimee@frontier.com" ] Vince Mendoza's arrangements & orchestrations [simon@icu.com] Re: Best vocal [Jack Merkel ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 17:46:14 -0700 From: "johncalimee@frontier.com" Subject: [none] She was singing? As a lone wolf on a deserted island....For most of her career I never thought of her work as 'song.' Nor singing really. So I had the most peculiar reaction to a Joni interview where I first heard her mention how many 'songs' she had written to that point in her career. -Songs? The thing that strikes me as her most elegant talent is her ability to construct melodies that seem spoken. Song speak if I can phrase it that way. It is a talent shared with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. In my heart 'other' people sang. But Joni spoke to me with melodic poetry. I never thought of it as singing. It is a quality that did not demand the kind of vocal theatrics of other music. It's a more limited use of the vocal instrument. Joni has eluded to this as well. With so many words crammed into the bar, there is limited room for using the voice as found in so much of the broader spectrum of popular music. -Which sat fine with me. I guess it is a matter of taste. The intellectual side of might may find acceptance and praise for the comments made so far. But my own personal tastes are such that much of what impresses the rest of you falls deaf on my ears. I am not a fan of clear voices... that perfect pitch... Diva-esque range... to me it's all theatrics. Shallow and with no meat. I remember Richard trying to persuade me with a host of classic singers, Jazz and Classical alike. And my only reaction was, "when she can write me the next 'Paprika Plains' get back to me. It is lost on me. The quality I love in her voice shines best in Travelogue. It is the music I play most often. And as I've mentioned I lean very heavily to late Joni for her voice. It's lonely being out here in the middle of the Pacific....... The only way I can describe it is to shift Arts, metaphors, whatever. If I were going to have someone read me a great piece of literature, the 'awk' I would chose would not be some young person with a polished voice. I'd rather have a late Richard Burton, an elderly Morgan Freeman, or the weathered voice of Laurence Olivier recite. When Leonard Cohen comes in on 'The Jungle Line' .....oh, how I sit up and take notice!!! There's a depth there. Maybe it's just my aging ears falling in love with lower registers I neglected to see in my youth. The husk in her voice is wrapped and engaged with new twists of phrasing... there's still a sweetness there of intonation that makes the weakened projection and lowered scale just the perfect delicate mix. There are more flavors in the mix. -It probably shines best in the vocals of BSN the late version. But I get to hear her carry that on ...and on ...and on with Travelogue. She plays with a lot of influences here. That drop on "looooot a HELP" in God Must be..... I dig that. So what if I think she's got her eye on Diana Krall when she does it? It works for me. There's such a rich lilt to Just Like this Train.... As much as I like this thread and look forward to hearing varying positions, there's a part of me where the hairs are up on the back of my neck, looking down and surveying the forest from afar.... Joni has come to that 'Madonna/whore' part of her career where perhaps there's no hope of gain. People may 'want' new music from her, only to decry how much she's 'lost it' in the same breath. I'd like to have her rasp at me. Weakened voice and all.... any new poetry her heart and vision leads her to. My choice: Travelogue. I've yet to hear anyone 'clear voiced' write me a collection comparable to that. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 18:58:01 -0400 From: simon@icu.com Subject: Vince Mendoza's arrangements & orchestrations Bob.Muller@Fluor.com wrote: > I think that Both Sides Now should get a special mention > > The whole album or just the title track? Frankly I think that vocally most > of BSN is so-so, and what makes it stand out are Vince Mendoza's > arrangements and the orchestration. Bob, Interesting. To me the Vince Mendoza arrangements & orchestration are the problem with the BOTH SIDES NOW album. When Wally and I first heard about Joni recording an album of standards, we hoped and assumed that it would end up being done with a small jazz combo. Perhaps Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Larry Klein, Brian Blade and unspecified others. Alas, it was not to be. As for Vince Mendoza and TRAVELOGUE  How / Why would you write orchestrations of Joni Mitchell songs and not base them on her Guitar Tunings? Ive often wondered what TRAVELOGUE would have sounded like if the arrangements and orchestrations had been done by either Randy Newman or Van Dyke Parks. Now THAT! would have been interesting. andmoreagain, - - - - - - - - - - simonM http://jonimitchell.com/chronology/complete.cfm http://jonimitchell.com/chronology/chronology_v4.0.pdf http://jonimitchell.com/music/InspiredByJoni_theAlbums.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 21:01:10 -0500 From: Jack Merkel Subject: Re: Best vocal I totally agree Dave. What a treat it must have been to hear those tapes. Can't wait for new CD. Jack Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 18, 2014, at 6:13 PM, Dave Blackburn wrote: > > Anita, that was a good weepfest wasnt it? I always want sound to make you feel something, and listening on a good system makes that much more likely. The same record played on a laptops internal speakers gives you about 10% of that feeling. > > On a related note, I was just introduced to a local audiophile, Kip Peterson, and he had me come over and do some listening on his front door size ribbon speakers with the discrete left and right monoblock power amps and cables (interconnects) that cost a months wages. In addition to LPs and CDs he also has a collection of master tapes. Now, these are reel to reel tapes that were sent off to foreign countries for LP pressing in those regions and they are direct transfers of the mastered albums. When those foreign plants closed down they had vaults of tapes to be disposed of and someone realized they could be sold to collectors. Kip has Blue and Court and Spark among other goodies like Dark Side of the Moon. He played me Blue. Joni was practically five feet in front of me strumming her dulcimer, as vivid as if she were in fact present. Sound equals feeling, or it ought to, and this was a profound feeling. I am refraining from chiming in on the best vocal thread because what y! > ou hear something on plays a HUGE part in how you respond to it. Blue is not even in my top five Joni albums but when I heard All I Want coming at me from half inch analog tape exactly as it left the mastering plant (Bernie Grundman) it was jaw dropping. > > On an unrelated note, Mutts of the Planet performing Hejira live is about to be released on CD in the next few weeks. Ill be giving out more info soon, and Youtubes of the June 1st Carlsbad show where it was recorded will be up shortly. I have spent two months mixing this, and it is a corker, as we say in the UK. > > love > Dave > > > >> On Aug 18, 2014, at 3:25 PM, Anita Gabrielle wrote: >> >> It's June 2nd 2014: >> At Dave and Robin's House near Fallbrook. >> Dave shares his sound system with >> Half a dozen or so of us Joni Listers and Friends. >> The 2000 version Vince Mendoza version of 'A Case Of You' rolls from the speakers. It is as though I have never heard it before. >> >> A deep, cracked Joni voice bleeds every word. >> >> I begin to sob. And I am not alone. >> Anita >> >>> On 18 Aug 2014, at 21:53, jlhommedieu@insight.rr.com wrote: >>> >>> Truly, anything from LOTC through WTRF. ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2014 #1101 ****************************** ------- To post messages to the list,sendtojoni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------