(from Eagle Eye Media)
Joni Mitchell: Painting with Words and Music. Well-worth viewing for any Joni fans and anyone interested in the best female jazz singer we’ve ever had (sorry Diana Krall). This is a solid 98 min. show featuring excellent back-up musicians: her ex-husband, producer-bassist Larry Klein, drummer Brian Blade, and Mark Isham and Greg Leisz on pedal steel and trumpet.
Joni’s paintings are also featured on the walls around the venue. This concert in front of a small audience was recorded about the time of her last non-compilation album Turbulent Indigo, from which you can see Joni’s painting of herself as van Gogh which was used as that album’s cover.
Her voice is in fine form and she feels free to bend the melodies of most of what she sings to suit the impromptuness of the occasion. Her suggestive jazzy chords form the base of the group’s playing. Songs include: “Big Yellow Taxi”, “Just Like This Train”, “Night Ride Home”, “Amelia”, “Hejira”, “The Magdelene Laundries”, “Nothing Can Be Done”, and “Woodstock”. Highly recommended show for songwriting and performance.