Court & Spark - JONI MITCHELL***

Court & Spark/Help Me/Free Man In Paris/People's Parties/The Same Situation/Car On A Hill/Down To You/Just Like This Train/Raised On Robbery/Trouble Child/Twisted

Court & Spark finds singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell moving further away from her folk roots towards a greater jazz influence. Not all of her fans were happy with this change in direction. (US:2 UK:14)

“Joni Mitchell's slick commercial peak came with Court & Spark, a tuneful, glossily-produced set of songs with few signs of her outré experimental tendencies to come. It is Joni for the era of hi-fi, a radical departure from the fragile folk she had been producing up until this point. It is also unlike other commercial makeover albums in that it sacrifices none of the art and is just as beautiful as what came before, if not more so.”

“The songs are not about big themes, but explore a series of relationships. They are like a series of short stories, vividly sketching emotional situations, although they often imply their stories rather than stating them, leaving us to fill in the gaps, letting us to take part in small dialogues of the imagination."

“Although brass heavy, Court & Spark is on the right side of jazz to be pop, while neither being too pop to be disposable even though belonging to the 70s.”

“Mitchell experiments further with her sound on Court & Spark, creating a jazz-inflected folk pop hybrid in the process. It's home to some of her most carefree music to date, from the breezy Free Man In Paris, that quite effectively mirrors the unburdened nature of the track's daydreaming title character, to the rollicking Raised On Robbery, to the flat-out fun Twisted, a 1950s jazz song that marks the first time a cover has made its way onto a Mitchell record.”

“This album is an example of her ability to subtly change styles and approaches, fusing jazz and blues, resulting in a captivating and quite arresting collection of my personal favourites.”

“Court & Spark is an exhilarating mix of jazz, pop, rock and Mitchell's ever distinctive voice. Her songs are brilliantly deceptive in that they seem simple on first listen, but the arrangements are complex with multiple overdubs of guitars, keys and chorus vocals on nearly every track.”

“I feel the album slips in the middle, where the songs seem to merge into one, as I can find nothing particularly interesting or distinctive about them.”