Something Blue: Reimagining Joni Mitchell's Blue Album
Description
SOMETHING BLUE
Reimagining Joni Mitchell's Blue Album
Alanna and the Blue Dreamers
Friday 13 November, 7.30pm
The ‘Something Blue’ show reimagines Joni Mitchell’s Blue (1971) album in vintage jazz style. The fourth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is a collection of songs that all deal with loss and transformation and has long been considered her magnum opus and her most personal album. Alanna and the Blue Dreamers
Alanna and the Blue Dreamers reimagine the songs of Joni Mitchell’s iconic Blue album through a distinctive interplay of classic jazz and folk, with original compositions inspired by Joni’s poetic lyricism and distinctive songwriting. Featuring Alanna Egan’s velvet vocals and Steve Grant’s transcendental piano, the quintet explores something old and something borrowed to create new hues of "Something Blue".
‘I envy Alanna’s patter – never seen such an incisive wit wrapped around an incredible talent. Review by singer Enda Kenny.
Joni Mitchell herself said of 'Blue - “there's hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period in my life, I had no personal defences. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defences there either."
Joni Mitchell in conversation with Cameron Crowe for the Los Angeles Times
Alanna and the Blue Sky Dreamers
Alanna Egan, Lead vocal
Steve Grant, Piano
Jen Hawley, Guitar / back up vocals
Hope Csutoros, Violin / back up vocals
Tim Nikolsy, Double bass
____________________
JONI MITCHELL BLUE
100 Best Albums of all time.
For most, a greasy skillet is a nuisance in the kitchen sink, an upcoming chore. But for Joni Mitchell, it’s a ripe romantic metaphor in waiting. In “My Old Man”, the second track on her fourth album, 1971’s Blue, the singer-songwriter plays the piano while singing a sunny ode to the life she shared with a “singer in the park” and “dancer in the dark” who keeps her blues at bay. She boasts of their bond, as strong as a marriage without the formality of it (“We don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall”), and pays him one of the highest compliments a musician can bestow (“He’s the warmest chord I ever heard”). But the bridge of “My Old Man” offers a chilly, atonal changeup in the midst of Mitchell’s warm affection that bubbles up from a deeper, darker place than the pleasantries>
Blue took shape in a moment of personal transition for Mitchell, right after the end of her relationship with Nash and just as she was falling for Taylor: She wrote her way out of an old love and into a new one, all while infusing her lyrics with the nostalgia, pain, joy, excitement and appreciation for all that bubbled to the surface in that period. And while Blue offers a glimpse into the recesses of Mitchell’s heart at the time, it explores all love and loss, not just of the romantic sort (“Little Green” is an ode to the daughter she gave up for adoption, which she wouldn’t reveal until the ’90s). Long hailed as her magnum opus, Blue is as much a testament to her talent as it is the readiness with which she’s willing to share her most intimate truths. The Cover Photograph: Taken by Tim Considine at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1968.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_%28Joni_Mitchell_album%29
Some interesting facts about Blue :
1. Joni bought an Appalachian dulcimer at a Big Sur craft fair in 1969, which became the core instrument behind the album's sound.
2. She wrote "California", "A Case of You", and "All I Want" on that dulcimer while traveling across Europe by train and boat.
3. Having never played the instrument before, she constantly invented her own unique chord tunings.
4. She completely banned visitors from the control room during recording at A&M Studios because she felt so emotionally raw.
5. James Taylor played guitar on "California" and "All I Want" during their brief romance, which had ended by the time the album debuted in June 1971. [1]
Lineup
Alanna Egan
Alanna Egan is an award-winning Melbourne singer-songwriter whose musical journey, like Joni Mitchell’s, began in folk, with a lifelong love of vintage jazz shaping her musical sensibility. Immersed in both folk and jazz from childhood, Alanna has recorded five original folk albums with her twin sister Alicia, as well as a classic jazz album with Alanna & Old Hat. She has toured extensively around Australia, performed at all the major Australian folk festivals, and taken her music to audiences in the US, Japan, Korea and France. She has also performed as a freelance jazz vocalist with some of Melbourne’s finest jazz players. With Alanna and the Blue Dreamers, she brings her folk heritage and jazz sensibility to Something Blue, reimagining Joni Mitchell’s seminal Blue album through her own distinctive musical lens, with original compositions inspired by Mitchell’s poetic vision and artistry.
Steve Grant
Steve Grant is one of Melbourne's in-demand keyboard players. As a freelance musician over three decades and more, he has toured with Black Arm Band and C.W. Stoneking, appeared at jazz festivals around the country, and performed with choirs, orchestras and dancebands. He has also made on-screen appearances in movies and TV and played on many CDs and records.
Jen Hawley
Jen Hawley is a Melbourne-based guitarist and vocalist whose musical journey spans jazz, blues, folk and world music. A graduate of renowned jazz guitar teacher Bruce Clarke, Jen has performed extensively across Australia and Europe, collaborating with a diverse range of artists and ensembles. She is a longtime member of The Royal High Jinx and Alanna and Old Hat, as well as leading her own jazz and European-inspired groups. Jen brings a love of beautiful melodies, sensitive accompaniment and rich harmonies to every musical collaboration.
Hope Csutoros
Hope Csutoros is a versatile Australian violinist who studied classical violin at the Budapest Franz Liszt Academy of Music before exploring improvisation, jazz and experimental music in Melbourne. Hope also studied jazz with Tony Gould and Brian Brown at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has performed across a wide spectrum of genres, notably as a founding member of ‘gypsy’ trio the Stiletto Sisters, pop folk band My Friend the Chocolate Cake, the David Chesworth Ensemble, and Cosmo Cosmolino. Her diverse experience includes theatrical productions like The Phantom of the Opera, Circus Oz and street theatre acts, alongside session recordings for major commercial Australian acts, including Midnight Oil and Deborah Conway.
Tim Nikolsky
Tim Nikolsky is a musician, educator, tech guy, enthusiastic homebrewer and most of the time an all-round pretty good guy. In his non-existent spare time, he curates the Australian Jazz Real Book, as well as playing in a wide variety of Melbourne musical ventures. He does musicological deep dives in Dingo Jazz Journal, and can often be found in his native habitat the recording studio either producing, mixing, and/or laying down some sweet tracks. Tim teaches Music Contemporary Performance at Virtual School Victoria, and has developed cat-herding competencies. Through his assessment work at the VCAA, his fairness, equity and attention to detail can be demonstrated through the advocacy of contemporary musicology as well as the positive assessment environment he actively contributes to. Much of his work on the AJRB is tasked with giving a platform to established and emerging musicians, and celebrating their achievements. As it is now a culturally significant resource, the AJRB has been written into tertiary music curricula across Australia, and he was awarded an APRA/AMCOS Art Music Award for this effort. Whilst Tim is involved in the Jazz scene, his practice, knowledge and expertise extends significantly into Contemporary, Art Music, Cross-cultural, Technology and Electronic approaches to music making. Tim's perpetual aim is to be Interesting, and Interested. His superpower is that he can eat his whole body weight in pistachios. is a musician, educator, tech guy, enthusiastic homebrewer and most of the time an all-round pretty good guy. In his non-existent spare time, he curates the Australian Jazz Real Book, as well as playing in a wide variety of Melbourne musical ventures. He does musicological deep dives in Dingo Jazz Journal, and can often be found in his native habitat the recording studio either producing, mixing, and/or laying down some sweet tracks. Tim teaches Music Contemporary Performance at Virtual School Victoria, and has developed cat-herding competencies. Through his assessment work at the VCAA, his fairness, equity and attention to detail can be demonstrated through the advocacy of contemporary musicology as well as the positive assessment environment he actively contributes to. Much of his work on the AJRB is tasked with giving a platform to established and emerging musicians, and celebrating their achievements. As it is now a culturally significant resource, the AJRB has been written into tertiary music curricula across Australia, and he was awarded an APRA/AMCOS Art Music Award for this effort. Whilst Tim is involved in the Jazz scene, his practice, knowledge and expertise extends significantly into Contemporary, Art Music, Cross-cultural, Technology and Electronic approaches to music making. Tim's perpetual aim is to be Interesting, and Interested. His superpower is that he can eat his whole body weight in pistachios.
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