Herbie Hancock’s 2007 Grammy Winning ‘River-The Joni Letters’ Celebrates Ten Year Anniversary with Expanded 2-CD Edition (ALBUM REVIEW)

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Just in time for perhaps a late gift, of this century’s most decorated jazz albums, Herbie Hancock’s River-The Joni Letters, is now available in a double CD format containing four new tracks that are appearing in CD format for the first time. Now the recordings are available in all formats, including vinyl.

This is only the second jazz album to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, following only Getz/Gilberto from 1965, 43 years prior. The musical tribute to Joni Mitchell, a close friend of Hancock’s and an even closer friend to Hancock’s long-time bandmate, Wayne Shorter, also won “Best Contemporary Jazz Album.”  The selections cover a side swath of Mitchell’s career and feature such artists as Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen, among others. Session players include Shorter on soprano and tenor, Dave Holland on bass, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke; the latter two who were members of Hancock’s band at the time.  (Note: Loueke now plays with Chick Corea and will be among the players on Corea’s upcoming January release, Chinese Butterfly).  Larry Klein, who was behind much of Mitchell’s work as a producer and collaborator, plays a similar role here.

These are far from straightly rendered covers but instead the songs, which are a mix of vocal and instrumentals, serve as catalysts for Hancock’s meditative explorations. The New York Times said, “Hancock is too smart to follow the tribute-record script. He doesn’t radically overhaul Mitchell’s songs – instead, he gently opens them up and lures the singers into fascinating free-associative conversations.” Hancock says, “We wanted to create a new vocabulary, a new way of speaking in a musical sense.” Klein added, “We used the words to guide us. All of the music emanated from the poetry.”

As you know, Mitchell took a detour from her folksinger type records early in her career, moving toward jazz, by first collaborating with Charles Mingus and enlisting the support of Hancock and Mingus on her Mingus album. As such, Hancock and Klein felt that was important to include two non-Mitchell compositions they deemed important to her development.  Shorter’s “Nefertiti,” on the Miles Davis album of the same name and Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” are two of the four instrumental pieces.  

Much of the music, both instrumental and vocal, is contemplative, elegant, lyrical, and often cinematic.   Shorter’s playing, in particular, is wonderfully melodic, as expected.  Mitchell herself takes the autobiographical “The Tea Leaf Prophecy,” while Tina Turner renders “Edith and the Kingpin,” and Norah Jones opens with “Court and Spark.”  Corrine Bailey Rae brings a new innocent, uplifting tone to “River” while Leonard Cohen recites the lyrics, as only he can, to “The Jungle Line.” Sonya Kitchell interprets “All I Want” on the bonus material along with instrumentals for “A Case of You,” “Harlem in Havana,” and “I Had a King.”

Simply said, this music is gorgeous, inspiring, and provocative.  If you somehow missed it the first time, don’t let this opportunity slip by.

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