Joni Mitchell’s next deep dive into her archives will focus on the singer-songwriter’s decades-long exploration into jazz music.
Joni’s Jazz, out September 4, features 61 jazz-focused studio recordings, live performances, and alternate takes from Mitchell’s catalog, stretching from 1968 to 2023. Mitchell previously hinted at the release in the liner notes of her Archives, Vol. 4: “People ask me my favorite of my albums, it’s going to be Joni’s Jazz.”
While the majority of the songs on Joni’s Jazz are plucked from Mitchell’s studio albums — like “Blue,” “Marcie,” and “Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire” — the collection features a pair of unreleased recordings: Two demos from 1980, jazzier renditions of “Be Cool” and “Moon at the Window,” songs that were conceived during the making of Mitchell’s 1980 album Mingus but ultimately reworked for her more pop-oriented 1982 LP Wild Things Run Fast.
The latest volume in Mitchell’s archival series also features her collaborations with jazz legends like Charles Mingus, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pistorius, and Wayne Shorter, to whom Joni’s Jazz is dedicated. “It was a joy to play with him,” Mitchell writes of Shorter in the liner notes. “He will be missed, but he will remain alive for me in this music.” (A photo of Hancock, Mitchell, and Shorter also features on the album cover.)
Joni’s Jazz, available to preorder now, also features live renditions of “Hejira” and jazz standards “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” and “Summertime,” the latter of which was recorded during Mitchell’s surprise Newport Folk Festival gig in 2022.
Joni’s Jazz Track List
CD One
- “Blue”
- “Trouble Man” – Kyle Eastwood feat. Joni Mitchell
- “Moon At The Window” – Demo 2 *
- “Be Cool” – Demo 2 *
- “Harlem In Havana”
- “Cherokee Louise”
- “Come In From The Cold”
- “In France They Kiss On Main Street”
- “Nothing Can Be Done”
- “Sex Kills”
- “Edith And The Kingpin”
- “Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire”
- “The Jungle Line”
- “Shades Of Scarlett Conquering”
- “Yvette In English”
- “Marcie”
- “A Bird That Whistles”
CD Two
- “Love”
- “Comes Love”
- “The Man I Love” – Herbie Hancock feat. Joni Mitchell
- “At Last”
- “You’re My Thrill”
- “Sometimes I’m Happy”
- “Stay In Touch”
- “The Crazy Cries Of Love”
- “Face Lift”
- “Sweet Sucker Dance” – Early Alternate Version
- “You Dream Flat Tires”
- “Answer Me, My Love”
- “Love Puts On A New Face”
- “Both Sides Now”
CD Three
- “Harry’s House/Centerpiece”
- “Sunny Sunday”
- “Hana”
- “Last Chance Lost”
- “Smokin’ (Empty, Try Another)”
- “Hejira” – Live at The Santa Barbara County Bowl (10/9/79)
- “Refuge Of The Roads”
- “Paprika Plains”
- “Blue Motel Room”
- “Black Crow”
- “Off Night Backstreet”
- “Just Like This Train”
- “No Apologies”
- “Not To Blame”
- “The Magdalene Laundries”
CD Four
- “The Sire Of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song)”
- “God Must Be A Boogie Man”
- “A Chair In The Sky”
- “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” – Live at The Santa Barbara County Bowl (10/9/79)
- “The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)” – Herbie Hancock feat. Joni Mitchell
- “Shine”
- “If I Had A Heart”
- “Impossible Dreamer”
- “One Week Last Summer”
- “Summertime” – Live at Newport Folk Festival (7/22/23)
- “Stormy Weather”
- “Two Grey Rooms” – Demo 5
- “The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines”
- “Twisted”
- “If”
