Thursday, September 27, 2007 | by nathan

“River: The Joni Letters” by Herbie Hancock et al.

From my junior year of high school on I overloaded myself with school work. I was trying to get into a great college, and I have never been under the mistaken impression that getting what you want involves anything but hard work. To that end I enrolled in a bunch of really tough classes and took on a whole, whole lot of extracurriculars. It all added up to a whole lot of nights that I was up until the wee hours of morning.

That’s when I discovered jazz. My radio in my room tuned in most clearly to the local National Public Radio affiliate, and I’d sit up all those hours, late into the night, listening to Jazz with Bob Parlocha. The music warmed my heart, and kept me sane in a lot of ways. My first jazz CD was The Essential Stan Getz, selections of which I’d heard the first night I listened. I rushed out the next day and bought one of his records. Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Stephane Grappelli, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Cannonball Adderly; these were my friends all those long, worried nights.

It was also around this time I was introduced to Joni Mitchell. Her album Blue has been with me for years, and every single time I listen to it I feel like I’m hearing it for the first time. It’s one of two albums that I listen to when I need to cry.

That same year, a friend at the time recommended I read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road; it’s jazz in literary form, to me; my education had begun.

Now, over ten years later, I am introduced to this: River: The Joni Letters, by Herbie Hancock. First off, it’s Joni, interpreted by Herbie, one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. Second, it features three of my favorite non-jazz vocalists: Tina Turner, Norah Jones, and Corinne Bailey Rae, each sounding completely new and in best form, plus some incredible musicians including Wayne Shorter of Weather Report, and Joni herself on the track "The Tea Leaf Prophecy."

Some records are like heaven. This one, especially. I think this will be my soundtrack to this fall and winter.