Shadows and Light [Import]

This is the reason I started listening to jazz. I was about 14 years old when I first heard this record, listening to bands like Parliament/Funkadelic
and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. But when I heard this live recording it changed my life.
This is one of Joni Mitchell's best recordings.
This album also contains some of the best work I believe Jaco Pastorius has done. Here he plays exactly what's needed
for this kind of pop/jazz-ballad music. Beautiful fills/solos throughout the record, and at times extremely complicated but suitable bass lines.
Pat Metheny also plays on this record. There's a separate track where he plays a nice solo accompanied by Lyle Mays on keyboards (who now plays
in the Pat Metheny Group). On the Charles Mingus classic "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", Michael Brecker solos fast, but it suites the ballad very nicely.
Joni sings, not only the melody originally written for the song, but also the melody from the original saxophone solo recorded on Mingus Ah Um in 1959.
The other Mingus composition, "The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines", which really lifts the album at the right point, ends with an amazing 3-minute
jazz-jam where Michael Brecker really "let's it all out", and Jaco grooves like never before.
I gave this album 5 stars, but I must point out that this album is also available as a double-cd. On this one they have left out "Free man in Paris", "Black Crow" and "Don's Solo" (percussion solo by Don Alias). If you're about to buy this record, I recommend the full version, which probably costs a little more money, but it's worth it!

This concert album represents the culmination of Mitch's "art" period. Although we get a song or two from such transitional works as "Court and Spark" and "The Hissing of Summer Lawns", most of the material is drawn from "Hejira" and the then-current "Mingus" album. By eschewing the older part of her catalogue, she avoids duplicating songs that were released on her previous live effort, "Miles of Aisles". Fans from the early days should be forewarned that by this time Mitchell was seriously flirting with jazz, so there's little old-fashioned rock'n'roll on this release, but never fear - this isn't the sort of music you put on while you're watching a ball game, or talking on the phone. This is a mature work by a brilliant songwriter, backed by what some have dubbed the greatest band ever assembled.

The selections vary between Joni's impassioned, quietly intense, deeply personal folk-based material ("Amelia", "Furry Sings the Blues", "Edith and the Kingpin"), and the rollicking exuberance of the band's full-tilt jazz explorations of "In France They Kiss On Main Street" and "The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines". On lead guitar we have virtuoso Pat Metheny (whose talents are somewhat underutilized on this set, sad to say), with his longtime compadre Lyle Mays playing keys, but Jaco Pastorius' bass-playing is super-phenomenal throughout; you really get a strong feel of how he's revolutionized the instrument, and Michael Brecker gives what must have been the performance of his career, especially on "The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" and the impassioned cover of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat".

This is not your father's (or your mother's) Joni Mitchell album. The power of the performances makes this a must-have recording for Mitchell's fans, even though they already have studio versions of all of these songs. For folk fans, Mitchell's haunting voice and introspective lyrics (albeit less distinctly personal than previously) still deserve attention. Progressive jazz fans will probably yearn for more Metheny, but Pastorius' bass works so effectively with this material that you can't fault the arrangements. Moreover, there's probably never been another album that so successfully merges progressive jazz with pop sensibility. Even more highly recommended is the vinyl version, which contains recordings of "Black Crow" and "Free Man in Paris" that are so incredible that it boggles the mind that they were cut from the CD.

I will always reflect back on "Shadows & Light" with tremendous fondness for two important reasons: it introduced me for the first time to Joni Mitchell's late 70s jazz-oriented body of work and also prepared me for the true greatness which was soon forthcoming from the team of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays (who play guitars and keyboards respectively on the concert album.)

"Shadows & Light" is a collage of Mitchell's various musical expressions throughout the years: rock, folk and pop ballads blended with her own unique and often quite eccentric style of jazz. The album kicks off brightly with "In France They Kiss on Main Street" with Mitchell packing in the words to this rapidly traveling and lyrically nostalgic pop tune. The crowd is enthusiastic from this very first song, which adds to the excitement and electricity of a very memorable evening at L.A.'s Hollywood Bowl.

From there it is a fascinating journey through the most recent Joni Mitchell works preceding this release...from "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" she performs the mysterious "Edith and the Kingpin" and the beautifully acappella title song with background vocals courtesy of The Persuasions. Mitchell's selections from her then recent collaboration with the late Charles Mingus are the focus of her most hard-core jazz performances including "Goodbye Porkpie Hat", "The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" and the finger-popping "God Must Be a Boogie Man" which feature the late Jaco Pastorius on bass and Michael Brecker on saxophone.

Most lyrical and haunting though are her beautiful and often ethereal selections from her album "Hejira" including the rolling and humor-laden "Coyote", the melancholy "Furry Sings the Blues" and most notably the absolutely monumental "Amelia"...a confessional tale full of loss and wanderlust with its focus on the life, dreams and death of Amelia Earhart. "Amelia" concludes with a visionary Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays duet, which is a fine early example of the incredibly melodic and prolific work these two composers and instrumentalists produced together in subsequent years (such as on the album "Pat Metheny Group: First Circle").

There are a few old favorites covered on "Shadows & Light": a lively rendition of the old rock and roll classic "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?", and performances of two older Joni Mitchell classics "Free Man in Paris" and the legendary "Woodstock."

While the concert DVD of "Shadows & Light" now appears somewhat dated, the CD of this concert is every bit as entertaining and emotionally charged as it ever was upon its initial release. Truly a unique live classic.