It would be blameworthy not to mention also the splendor of Hejira's cover sleeve (report to related thumbnails on previous page). I will not insist too long on the matter, having already expressed myself in my "Hejira" comment left on Amazon in 2009 (see previous page), but it should all the same be emphasized that more than forty years later, one remains bewitched by the intelligence and the elegance of Joni Mitchell's conceptual and graphic design, by the refinement and sobriety of Glen Christensen's layout, and "last but not least" by the sumptuous photos of Norman Seeff and Joel Bernstein -and by Keith Williamson's photo-print work as well.

Then the same critics would turn up their noses (and incidentally close their ears) at Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, published in 1977 and one of the other true masterpieces of the Canadian artist. A logical extension of the experiments which The Hissing of Summer Lawns had magnified as a rule within the musician's creative process -assuming that experiments already existed at the stage of more intimate touches in most of the works that preceded Hissing and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. In the latter, the former Jungle Line’s avant-garde and harsh World Music from "Hissing" renews there in a frenzied extension with The Tenth World. It later softens with the uplifting Dreamland under the languor and moisture of the islands (that of Jamaïca, in this case). The hypnotic and stripped-down rhythms which had so wonderfully weaved Hejira's icy landscapes accelerate here, giving birth to the album’s extraordinary eponymous title song : this composition's powerful and mystical poetry allied to the sound of guitars and percussions can never be celebrated enough. Elsewhere, the symphony once dedicated to some kind of insensitive and imperial Scarlett now wraps the Indian territories’

red mesas, and unfolds in some kind of hallucinatory, cosmic and yet intimate fresco. Then the music takes its time, explores and finally sublimates itself in a Jazz explosion which takes the composition to the peaks of a masterpiece. Here is the mythical Paprika Plains, a musical monument, a unique jewel that no one before Joni Mitchell and no one ever since could ever match.

After the outcry sparked by The Hissing of Summer Lawns, then the sometimes disoriented comments that Hejira aroused, and in the aftermath the more than mixed reception that the disconcerting Don Juan's Reckless Daughter double album met, Joni Mitchell crossed the T's and dots the I's with her new exploration. Did she get blamed for being "arty" and convoluted, for having abandoned choruses and melodies in favor of verbose, endless and atonic melodies? Never mind, audience and critics had not seen anything yet -or rather heard nothing yet. Joni Mitchell's new musical adventure (and a true apotheosis in her travels through the land of Jazz), will consummate the divorce with her following, the critics, and the radios likely to play her music : the latter will turn their backs on her – if not permanently, at least for a good while. As for critics, they complete the quarry and take out the knives when the Mingus UFO appears in 1979, result of the collaboration between Joni Mitchell and the legendary composer and jazz bassist Charles Mingus.

Many among the critics who count literally crucify Mingus, seeing in the opus only a pretentious, contrived, and obscure effort. Nowadays, with the hindsight that the passage of time provides, and the status acquired by Mingus as an indisputable masterpiece, these statements con-