Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Otis and Marlena
2. Amelia
3. You Dream Flat Ties
4. Love
5. Woodstock
6. Slouching Toward Bethlehem
7. Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Tune)
8. The Sire of Sorrow
9. For the Roses
10. Trouble Child
11. God Must Be a Boogie Man

Disc 2:

1. Be Cool
2. Just Like This Train
3. Sex Kills
4. Refuge of the Roads
5. Hejira
6. Chinese Cafe
7. Cherokee Louise
8. The Dawntreader
9. The Last Time I Saw Richard
10. Borderline
11. The Circle Game

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28334 in Music
• Released on: 2002-11-19
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Enhanced

Album Description
A two CD set featuring 2002 recordings of songs from throughout her illustrious career, this time in the orchestrated style that made the 2000 release 'Both Sides Now' such a success. Guests artists include Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter & Kenny Wheeler. Deluxe digipak housed in a slipcase, includes two booklets plus enhanced CD content. Nonesuch.

Amazon.com
Travelogue finds the incomparable Joni Mitchell sticking to the orchestral format that worked so well on her 2000 album, Both Sides Now, where she took a series of American standards, hitched them up to a 70-piece orchestra, and gave them her own quirky twist. With Travelogue, however, she has applied that technique to her own back catalog. Recorded in London's Air Studios with an orchestra, 20-voice choir, and key players such as Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, this double CD offers moving reinterpretations of her most significant songs. There is "Woodstock," for instance, now sounding filmic and expansive, and "Hejira," softened by strings. Mitchell avoids schmaltz, however, with a rigorous, jazz-inspired approach. "God Must Be a Boogie Man," for instance, has a sense of Miles Davis's languid cool, while "For the Roses" sounds vibrant and edgy. On this record Mitchell explores memory and nostalgia, but without a hint of regret. --Lucy O'Brien

Customer Reviews

A definite keeper
Anyone who has listened and loved any Joni song,will be entranced by this re-working of some of her greatest tunes. I have listened over and over, and hear something new each time, which is what Joni's music always does. Yes , the voice is a little battered now, but it just adds more character and you can feel the experience that the years have brought in each song. It is a must have and a definite keeper!!

Brilliant but over-arranged
Travelogue is a 2002 follow-up to "Both Sides Now," released in 2000, and which pioneered Joni's work with a 70-piece symphony orchestra. Unlike the former album, which mostly reworked jazz songs from 1930s and 1940s (but also included a scintillating reworking of the song "Both Sides Now") this CD explores her own work from the 1970s through 1990s. Aside from the 70-piece orchestra, Joni is backed by jazz legends such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Kenny Wheeler, drummer Brian Blade, bassist Chuck Berghofer, and organist Billy Preston. Several things are notable about these arrangements: most of them are much slower than the originals, many of been transposed down, some by as much as a fourth or a fifth, and the guitar is entirely absent while the jazz elements of the songs have been enhanced. For the most part this works very well, as Mitchell's now-Smokey voice seems much more comfortable in the lower range than where she used to sing in her early career.

I have only one objection to this CD, which is the reason for the 4-star rating, and which has been endemic in attempts to marry pop or rock music to a symphony orchestra (see earlier Moody Blues, for example): the songs are simply over-arranged. A symphony orchestra is almost inevitably overkill in the pop/rock environment. What I would have loved to have seen (and which could easily have made this a five star product) is for Joni to have used a simple string orchestra instead of a whole symphony. In addition, there are a few tunes that would have benefited from some of Joni's own brilliant guitar work. The overarrangement can be especially noticeable on tunes like "Woodstock," which began life as rock tunes and fit awkwardly into this new conception.

buy buy buy
if you never have heard her or you will never buy any Joni Mitchell but one, make it this one. the only thing that would have made it even better is if she had added "both sides now" to the album. listen with the cans on, to really listen to the words. one song "Love" is from the Bible, and never was it been sung more wonderfuly, or with more meaning