One admires Joni Mitchell for the beauty of “Ladies Of The Canyon” (1970), the intimacy of “Blue” (1971), the slickness of “Court And Spark” (1974), the complex jazz-folk of “The Hissing Of Summer Lawns” (1975) and the ethereally floating masterpiece “Hejira” (1976). “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” (1977) – like the often underestimated “For The Roses” (1972) – is considered a transitional album that in this case went nowhere.
If you listen to the double LP with fresh ears today, a suspicion arises: While you would expect male artists to have every exuberant, ambitious, boundary-crossing, eclectic work that defies any category, from the unfinished “Smile” (Beach Boys, 1966/67) up to “Songs In The Key Of Life” (Stevie Wonder, 1976), always interpreted as a testament to her genius, one recognized this as a songwriter’s overestimation of herself.
Every facet of her art can be found on the album
“Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” is Joni Michell’s “White Album” (although of course, as you can see from the cover that shows the artist in blackface, it is more of a black album): every facet of her work can be found on this record, which at the same time goes beyond the previous work.
Mitchell never sang more beautifully, better, more nuanced than in the overture “Cotton Avenue”, never wrote more openly and courageously than in “Talk To Me”, which was directed at Bob Dylan, and never sounded cooler than on “Off Night Backstreet”, the percussive experiments of “The Tenth World” and “Dreamland” anticipate what would later occupy their colleagues David Byrne and Paul Simon for a long time.
And the climax, the epic “Paprika Plains,” made Charles Mingus, who was already on his deathbed, call out to her, perhaps because he recognized a connection to his last epochal work, “Let My Children Hear Music” (1972), especially since Mitchell was now accompanied almost exclusively by jazz musicians (Weather Report minus Joe Zawinul).
Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter is a masterpiece and Joni Mitchell is a genius.