Dreamland
Compressing the diverse highlights of Joni Mitchell's four-decade career into the hour-and-change confines of a single CD seems like an unfair challenge. But with Mitchell herself tackling the anthologizing,Dreamlandplays like a warm reintroduction to an old, if ever mercurial, musical friend. Taking nothing for granted, Mitchell shrewdly anchors the set with two of her early jazz-infused commercial breakthroughs, "Free Man in Paris" and "In France…," before charting an elliptical course through one of the most consistently inspired song canons in all of pop music. While familiar hits are well-represented, the collection also widens to include her forays with Afrocentric rhythms ("The Jungle Line," title track) and her tribute to a beloved blues legend ("Furry Sings the Blues"). Indeed, the choices here are often as playfully surprising as the tantalizing omissions: "Dancin' Clown," her unlikely '80s collaboration withTom PettyandBilly Idol, is included yet there's nothing from the sublimely challengingMingus. It all wends to an elegiac triptych from her latter-day symphonic reinventions (TravelogueandBoth Sides Now), their postmodern elegance informed by the bittersweet knowledge that Mitchell undertook a self-imposed recording hiatus thereafter. Richly illustrated with the musician's own distinctive paintings, the 17-track collection also includes new liner notes by writer-director Cameron Crowe.--Jerry McCulley