Joni Mitchell – Joni's Jazz 4CD Box Set

Joni Mitchell – Joni's Jazz

Joni Mitchell introduces Joni’s Jazz, a passion project years in the making. This 4CD or 8LP edition feature recordings chosen by Mitchell that reflect jazz’s profound influence on her music, liner notes with rare and previously unseen photos and original artwork by Mitchell. Spanning 61 tracks, Joni’s Jazz includes studio recordings, live performances, rare alternate takes, and material drawn from multiple decades and record labels. Among them are two previously unreleased 1980 demos.

The set features contributions from some of Mitchell’s most important collaborators in jazz, among them Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, and Charles Mingus. Mitchell, who calls Shorter her favorite collaborator, dedicates the collection to him following his passing in 2023. “It was a joy to play with him,” she writes. “He will be missed, but he will remain alive for me in this music.

Covering nearly every era of her recording career, the collection includes selections from Songs To A Seagull, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira, Mingus, Turbulent Indigo, Both Sides Now (a 2001 Grammy Award winner), and more. It also features her guest appearances on projects like Hancock’s Grammy Award-winning album, River: The Joni Letters. Across the collection, the music follows Mitchell’s artistic growth — from the rhythmic layering of “Harry’s House / Centerpiece” to the bold experimentation of “The Jungle Line,” the narrative scale of “Paprika Plains,” and the airy, improvised feel of “A Chair In The Sky.”

It draws from more than five decades of Mitchell’s recordings, going back to 1968 for “Marcie,” from Song To A Seagull. The most recent is her performance of “Summertime,” recorded live at the 2023 Newport Folk Festival. It marked Mitchell’s first full-length concert in over two decades — a powerful return that resonated around the world. As a self-portrait in sound, Joni’s Jazz captures an artist in conversation with jazz over a lifetime — never imitating, always inventing. Last year, in the liner notes for Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 4, she joked, “People ask me my favourite of my albums, it’s going to be Joni’s Jazz.” Now it is.

Tracklist:
CD1:
1. Blue
2. Trouble Man - Kyle Eastwood Feat. Joni Mitchell
3. Moon At the Window Demo
4. Be Cool - Demo
5. Harlem In Havana
6. Cherokee Louise
7. Come In From the Cold
8. In France They Kiss On Main Street
9. Nothing Can Be Done
10. Sex Kills
11. Edith and the Kingpin
12. Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire
13. The Jungle Line
14. Shades of Scarlett Conquering
15. Yvette In English
16. Marcie
17. A Bird That Whistles

CD2:
1. Love
2. Comes Love
3. The Man I Love Herbie Hancock Feat. Joni Mitchell
4. At Last
5. You Re My Thrill
6. Sometimes I M Happy
7. Stay In Touch
8. The Crazy Cries of Love
9. Face Lift
10. Sweet Sucker Dance Early Alternate Version
11. You Dream Flat Tires
12. Answer Me, My Love
13. Love Puts On a New Face
14. Both Sides Now

CD3:
1. Harry S House/Centerpiece
2. Sunny Sunday
3. Hana
4. Last Chance Lost
5. Smokin (Empty, Try Another)
6. Hejira - Live At the Santa Barbara County Bowl, September 9, 1979
7. Refuge of the Roads
8. Paprika Plains
9. Blue Motel Room
10. Black Crow
11. Off Night Backstreet
12. Just Like This Train
13. No Apologies
14. Not To Blame
15. The Magdalene Laundries

CD4:
1. The Sire of Sorrow (Job S Sad Song)
2. God Must Be a Boogie Man
3. A Chair In the Sky
4. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
5. The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)
6. Shine
7. If I Had a Heart
8. Impossible Dreamer
9. One Week Last Summer
10. Summertime
11. Stormy Weather
12. Two Grey Rooms
13. The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines
14. Twisted
15. If

Label: Rhino Records
Released: 2025