By Anthony Gallo

“Art is human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.” Tolstoy, What is Art?

In 1998, Joni Mitchell’s ex-husband and collaborator Larry Klein was producing a benefit concert in Los Angeles for the Walden Woods Project. He assembled an orchestra to support an amazing vocalist lineup that included Paula Cole, Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, Natalie Cole, Bjork, and Joni herself. After Joni performed “Stormy Weather” and the classic Marvin Gaye composition “Trouble Man”, she approached Larry about doing an entire album with orchestra. In the May 26, 2000 edition of Downbeat magazine, Joni discusses what is was like performing with an orchestra for the first time.

It was such a thrill singing with an orchestra, and all of us decided that we wanted to do more of it. It’s a very expensive habit. Charlie Parker got a taste for it and could hardly stand going back to the small bands. I understand that he used to sit in with Lawrence Welk just to feel the big beast around him.

Notwithstanding the utterly horrid visual that comes to mine when Joni talked about Charlie Parker in the Lawrence Welk Orchestra, the emotional and artistic impact that the experience had on her must have been substantial. Joni Mitchell traditionally been a small group performer; many of her famous tracks had been done with her on vocal and guitar, or with a small ensemble of musicians. The idea of Joni playing with 22, 42, and 71 piece orchestras presented a new challenge to her, and one that had a phenomenal outcome (including two Grammy’s).

Over the years, Joni’s songs have become standards, even to the point where Sinatra did a recording of Joni’s “Both Sides Now”. Sinatra, much like Miles Davis, never really cared where his songs came from, as long as they were of quality, and his source in the Sixties switched from Tin Pan Alley to such writers as Stevie Wonder, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Mitchell. Both Sides Now, the orchestral album that Joni put together with Larry Klein, contains ten standards from Tin Pan Alley with two of her own originals added for some dynamic. In the liner notes to the album, Klein describes the song selection process that ensued.

"As we began the process of selecting the songs for this record, Joni came up with the idea of having the record trace the arc of a modern romantic relationship. I thought that this idea was innovative, exciting and especially appropriate considering that the focal point of her work has been an inquiry into the nature of modern love. The album would be a programmatic suite documenting a relationship from initial flirtation through optimistic consummation, metamorphosing into disillusionment, ironic despair, and finally resolving in the philosophical overview of acceptance and the probability of the cycle repeating itself."

A well phrased explanation of an interesting concept. The album as a whole is amazing, a most daring, interesting, and beautiful recording. I never personally cared for singer-orchestra combinations, and before hearing this album, had never been exposed to Joni Mitchell. But the real triumph in the album lies in this little gem that Joni penned called “A Case of You”.

“A Case of You” debuted on Joni’s album Blue in the early 1970’s. The idea of her reworking this song over to be performed with full orchestra is a large conceptual and sonic leap, one that could have easily crashed and burned. In Joni’s original version, sung at about an octave higher than her tobbacoed alto today, James Taylor’s guitar is her only accompaniment. The piece conjures up images of a young couple, somewhere in Nowhere, USA, trying to discover both themselves and each other within and without the confines of the relationship. Of course, most love songs are troubled love songs- comfortable love does not make for good drama or music. Stanza One sets the stage for these two lovers desperately searching, trying to find each others, looking for some permanency in their world. Just before our love got lost you said "I am as constant as a northern star" And I said, "Constant in the darkness Where's that at? If you want me I'll be in the bar" On the back of a cartoon coaster In the blue TV screen light I drew a map of Canada Oh Canada And I sketched your face on it twice

When Joni sings the same lyrics today, they take on a different meaning. The older voice, naturally, gives us an unpastoral picture, not with a couple in their young twenties, but in their late fifties, in the midst of marital crisis. Hope has turned to despondency; active pursuit has changed to somnambulism.

The motif of narrator as artist continues in stanza two. Also entering the stew that is her most recent orchestral version is Wayne Shorter. Shorter is considered by many to be the seminal jazz composer in the last thirty years, definitely the most cited, sharing prestige with none but Ellington Of course, he is also a saxophone player of amazing virtuosity, playing with the likes of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the early Sixties, moving on to play with Miles in the Second Great Quintet and the beginnings of his fusion period, then creating the most important fusion group that existed, Weather Report, with Svengali Joe Zawinul. These are of course impressive accomplishments in the jazz community, but he has also made important waves in popular music, playing with Steely Dan on Aja and many of Joni Mitchell’s albums since the mid-Seventies. Shorter’s role with Mitchell usually consists of using his sax to provide either harmonic support by adding another sonic layer, or more commonly, by playing obbligati behind Mitchell. One can talk about Wayne’s playing with Mitchell all day. He usually chooses the soprano sax over the tenor; the soprano seems to blend in more with Joni’s voice. As stanza two begins, Shorter comes in on soprano laying a harmonic foundation with a breathy legato note. When he solos, his playing juxtaposes gentle arpeggios with harsh staccato bursts. Shorter’s wife died in the TWA flight 800 crash over New York a few years ago, and since the playing, and maybe I am projecting, his playing has been taken to a new level. The juxtaposition, and with it, the drama and sadness, are much more pronounced than before. The emotional impact is nothing but devastating, and I often wonder if it is Shorter’s playing that allows the performance to be as successful as it is. Klein said in the Downbeat article, “When we did ‘A Case of You’, which is entirely her live vocal, the orchestra gave her a standing ovation, and half of them were weeping. It was quite amazing to see an English orchestra get that emotional.”

Hidden in the midst of stanza two is this one particular lyric that struck me. Maybe after hearing so much Brittany Spears on the radio one tends to get cynical, but today I find it very hard to find music of a romantic nature that does not resort to cliche or is emotionally limited. I have no particular intention to indulge in a philosophical discourse of the nature of love. Many have attempted to try to characterize it, and their attempt inevitably fails. But there it is, in that one buried line, in that line within a line.

I remember that time that you told me, you said "Love is touching souls" Surely you touched mine "Cause part of you pours out of me In these lines from time to time

Love is touching souls. An interesting and bold idea. The melody of the song is powerful enough – I am reminded of what Miles said in the liner notes to Sketches of Spain about Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez“ having a “distilled melody”, that “if you tried to play bebop on it, you’d wind up being a hip cornball”. Mitchell’s melody on the piece is powerful, but combining it with such lyrics as “Love is touching souls”, it’s so much, it’s so rich, powerful, how can I ever listen to Brittany again? One could argue that it is extremely presumptuous to attempt to try to define love, this singer-songwriter-guitarist from Canada. I give her credit. I don’t know if the definition is successful or if it fails. It is almost a working definition. But it is truly profound. And not profound in some Left-Bank-black-beret-café-existentialist way, but it is a true attempt to look at something that touches each one of us, yet something that remains so utterly undefinable.

Just as hard to define as “love” is “art”. Tolstoy’s definition of art is basically the communication of human emotions through a medium. The concise version of Webster’s had no less than 10 definitions of art, and they all seem to revolve around a central concept, perhaps something that Tolstoy was touching on. In Philosophy of The Arts: An Introduction to Aesthetics, Gordon Graham analyzes R.G. Collingwood’s definition and characteristics of art as purported in his The Principles of Art. Graham points out that Collingwood “distinguishes between art proper and art as amusement on one hand, which by his account arouses emotion for the sake of enjoyment, and art as magic on the other, which arouses and focusses emotions which may then be directed at concers in ordinary life” (31). He then points out that art as amusement and magic are thus craft, a technical undertaking with a direct purpose. This perhaps has never been a more important distinction than in the music world today, where some repulsive airplane executive from Florida has been turning out ready-made boy bands and pop acts for the last 4 years now. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. But every time on turn on MTV and see the epitome of mediocrity, Mr. Carson Daly himself, with an entirely mediocre Abercrombie nation supporting him, I get violently ill. MTV and a majority of the music industry is simply that - industry. How can we ever expect children today to grow up and be responsible music listeners and supporters of the arts when we feed them the Backstreet Boys, who have the audacity to call themselves true artists? Graham goes on to argue, with Collingwood’s assistance, that “the value of art lies not in its helping us to come to a proper apprehension of personal (or even communal) feeling, but to a greater awareness of the world around us” (36).

The overall emotional impact that this piece had on me, a simple listener, is immeasurable. But it is not merely the beauty that is the music or the emotions that come when I listen to it, but it is the larger sense of awareness and enlightenment. Maybe it is the awareness of my view of romantic love and what I desire from it; the power of love in this modern age of cynicism; how love changes over the years. For that reason, “A Case of You” is a true art by the definition purported by Graham. This is not some song created by a group of music writers for some God-forsaken boy-band to sing to their screeming pre-teen audience. This is a piece written by a woman who is well aware of our existential possibilities and our existential failures and disappointments with the lives we lead. “So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.” Aaron Copland.