MITCHELL,JONI - BOTH SIDES NOW Price: €9.99 Format: Compact Disc Availability: Immediate Dispatch

Joni Mitchell is no stranger to jazz, as evidenced by her work with the legendary Charles Mingus toward the end of his life. On her 20th album, Mitchell forgoes the outer reaches of Mingus's jazz in favour of interpreting more traditional American vocal pop. By interpreting material normally associated with Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, the Canadian iconoclast travels down the same road as her old pal Linda Ronstadt. Unlike Ronstadt's mid-'80s three-album foray with Nelson Riddle into the great American standards songbook, Mitchell approaches this project on a more personal and conceptual level, as she traces the arc of a modern romantic relationship.
Backed by the billowy sounds of the London Symphony Orchestra, Mitchell's burnished vocals provide a perfect match as she goes from discovering love ("At Last") to see it start to crumble ("Sometimes I'm Happy") and ultimately collapse ("Stormy Weather"). Jazz greats Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock add some bite to the lush orchestrations. Mitchell weaves a personal touch into the conceptual framework by including a radically altered version of her own "A Case of You" and "Both Sides Now". A haven for pop-vocals fans whose definition of the genre begins and ends with Sinatra.