Joni Mitchell - Hejira
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Free Music Notes for Hejira
Free Music Review: The absolute best CD by any artist ever
Hit: 5 Stars
Where to even start with "Hejira"? I am 35 years old, have been an avid music fan all my life, owned over 3,000 LP's and now have over 2,500 CD's - and in my opinion, "Hejira" is the absolute best CD ever released, period.
It's hard to put into words why this album speaks so personally to me and my fellow reviewers. Its musical landscapes, mostly carved through Joni's guitar and Jaco Pastorious' bass, are unlike anything that came before or since. The song structure - mostly free-form and only occasionally rhyming - is unconventional to say the least. Yet Joni's songs capture a mood and spirit of travel, introspection and yearning to fly that speak to the dream so many of us carry to leave the ground and soar like the "Black Crow" of Track 7.
If you have found yourself longing to fly, to explore avenues or life passages other than the ones you originally chose, or to travel with a different crowd that the one you think you ended up with (but trust me, you haven't "ended up" and you have the power to change everything! Listen to "Refuge of the Roads"), this album may speak to you in ways you can't shake, even 25 years after you first heard it. Try it out. You won't be sorry.
Free Music Review: Yeah, it doesn't get any better than this...
Hit: 5 Stars
Evocative. Visceral. Soothing. Sophisticated. BRILLIANT! I don't care what the "critics" had to say about Hejira - I don't need someone else's supposedly expert opinion to tell me how I should experience great music - or any music... and this is surely great music. Joni put an out of body experience on vinyl here... and all I have to do is listen to her "strains of Benny Goodman"... etc... to be transported. This music reminds me of so much - from hitch-hiking endless miles in my teenage years, to cold-water restrooms in an Adirondack mountain campsite, to being in love with hopelessly impossible dreams (and women... LOL), to just driving, driving... across the wide plains of eastern New Mexico and West Texas chasing thunderstorms with the top down(the clouds of Michelangelo...). "Refuge of the Roads" is one of my essential songs - along with Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee" and Emmylou Harris' "Rose of Cimarron" to name a few others --- all very unique and original... they set the tone for the music of my life. Now, after listening to zillions of songs from every musical genre from country to classical to jazz to rock and hip-hop... this album stands above everything else. Period.Free Music Review: One of my favorite albums
Hit: 5 Stars
Of all the albums I have heard over the years this is one of the best. I buy too many btw. Some discuss if earlier or later records by Joni are better. I love Mingus just as much as I love the 1st 3 or 4 albums where she used her amazing early material.
She, as shown in the documentary about her life and work, has always continued growing artistically and continued to take chances and make large changes. That is the sign of a superior artist. Few do it as well as she does.
I love her melodies, sense of rhythm and musical styles! Of course, she started as an amateur dancer and art student before getting into folk music almost by accident. Since then her work defies labels, a very good aspect of it.
I could go into detail about each track of this wonderful masterpiece but more than any one track, I have been touched by the whole, the way one song flows into the next.
Let me just mention that Fury Sings the Blues puts into poetry the injustices which black jazz and blues musicians faced and still face in the music business. A genius like Joni with her great sensitivity goes to the heart of the matter. Don't miss this one!
Free Music Review: A profound & deeply poetic journey.
Hit: 5 Stars
"Hejira" is widely considered one of Joni's most prolific & inspired works, & it's completely understandable as to why. It contains wonderful soundscapes such as "Black Crow", "Furry Sings the Blues", & the timelessly brilliant "Amelia". Vivid poetic imagery of a life-altering road trip with perfect metaphors & symbols that elegantly unroll as Joni tells each harrowing tale. From the rainy & sullen "Song For Sharon" to the gold dust in the wind beauty of the title track, "Hejira" is an undeniable masterwork. On the stunning closer she sums up this journey wonderfully with:
"In a highway service station
Over the month of June
Was a photograph of the earth
Taken coming back from the moon
And you couldn't see a city
On that marbled bowling ball
Or a forest or a highway
Or me here least of all
You couldn't see these cold water restrooms
Or this baggage overload
Westbound and rolling
taking refuge in the roads."
"Hejira" is a beautiful exodus that will make anyones collection complete. Don't miss this journey.
Free Music Review: Incredible then and now.
Hit: 5 Stars
I've never written a review here, but just have to say something about this album. If you like rock and/or have liked any jazz you've heard, you will never regret giving this cd a try. Especially if you like people such as Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, the Pat Metheny Group, Modesky Martin and Wood, Beth Orton, EBTG, Lucinda Williams, Suzanne Vega, or the shoegazers you'll love this, but that doesn't mean it sounds like them. Actually, their music was probably informed by having listened to it, but Hejira transcends categories. Each song is wonderful on its own, but the album almost requires being listened to as a whole. The lyrics are eloquent, clear-headed looks at herself and people around her, and alone are worth getting the album. The music's spareness, freshness and cohesive beauty is absolutely breathtaking. And by the way, what Jaco Pastorius did with the bass on this has to be some of his best work; if you like jazz bass you pretty much have to listen to this. Anyway, enough gushing. Just get this--but look out; if you play it in the car on a solo road trip it'll both haunt and change you.