Review: Drawn To All Things

All About Jazz, 3 January 2025

Ian Patterson

Joni Mitchell Jazzed: Ten Essential Mitchell Covers

Despite Mitchell's affinity with jazz, her compositions — recorded by thousands of artists — have received relatively little attention from jazz musicians. The following list represents some of the best jazz interpretations of Mitchell's songs.

Ian Shaw: Night In The City

Another to record an entire album of Joni Mitchell's songs is Welsh singer Ian Shaw. The fourteen songs on Drawn To All Things (Linn, 2006) — the title comes from Mitchell's Shadows and Light — draw from a broad swathe of Mitchell's discography, from Songs To A Seagull (Reprise, 1968) to Taming the Tiger (Reprise, 1998).

Night In The City, from Mitchell's debut album, is given the swing treatment, with Shaw interjecting bursts of bubbly scatt. Nigel Hitchcock on tenor saxophone and pianist Tim Lapthorn both take lively solos, but the star of the show is Shaw — not for nothing is he widely considered as the UK's greatest jazz singer. In his delivery there are shades of Mark Murphy and Jon Hendricks, artists in whose company Shaw very much belongs.

Full list:
www.allaboutjazz.com/joni-mitchell-jazzed-ten-essential-mitchell-covers