Ritmo

Latin Beat Magazine, Sept, 1997 by Ernesto Lechner

Life After Love

In 1993, Argentinian singer-songwriter Fito Paez demonstrated he was a force to be reckoned with in the world of "rock en Español" with El amor despues del amor, a defining moment in the genre, filled with snappy melodies and smart, passionate lyrics.

After a disappointing follow-up, Circo Beat, that seemed to capitalize on the previous album's commercial and stylistic successes, Paez is back with a live album, demonstrating for a second time in a row that he has somehow reached a creative dead end.

In this slightly vacuous foray into the fancy trend of "Unplugged" albums, Paez delivers three new, average songs, while revisiting some of the tunes that made him a folk hero in the streets of Buenos Aires (Ciudad de pobres corazones, A rodar mi vida). He has obviously spared no expense at creating richer textures for these old nuggets, using a full blown symphony orchestra, drums and percussion, two guitars and bass, plus two extra keyboardists accompanying his acoustic piano.

It's all pleasant at best, although the new arrangements bring a renewed tenderness to classics like 11 y 6 and Del '63. For all the spectacular production involved, the disc just doesn't quite take off, and the songs are strangely lacking in impact.

Latin Lover

One of the first Angle artists to successfully blend their personal songwriting artistry with the Latin beats, Joni Mitchell has been honored with not one, but two new compilations of her work, released at the same time.

Anybody with enough memory (or a few extra years) easily realizes that all the Paula Coles and Jewels of the world would not be here if it weren't for the one and only Joni. In the sixties, she proved that a woman, alone with her voice and a guitar, could have as much to say as any man. In the seventies, she changed pop music, merging the limited genre with jazz, experimental songwriting and world beats. In the eighties, she released few albums, a pale reminder of past glories. Now, these two compilations are meant to revisit her work representatively, and fail miserably.

The idea was to compile the most commercially palatable music she made under one volume (Hits its name) and the introspective, ignored quality work on another one (ironically entitled Misses. Both are available on REPRISE RECORDS). Sadly, the emphasis was placed on both Joni's Woodstock days and her '90s, contemplative output, missing her sparkling, memorable flirtation with Latin music.

Initially, it was an album as sour and monodimensional in its melancholy as Blue that was considered to be Joni's "magnum opus." She was the wispy lady with the guitar, singing songs of longing. Now that many years have passed, her discography can be truly reevaluated, and the winners are, without any doubt, her late-mid to late-seventies albums, where the singer augmented her sound palette with new, different instruments, and the lyrics became more cryptic, airy and desperate.

It all started with 1975's The Hissing of Summer Lawns, a collection of elusively simple songs, tainted with African drumming and lounge jazz tones. The revelation, though, was Hejira, a majestic concept album of epic proportions, filled with ideas, drowned in the pain of adulthood and the beauty of its sparse instrumentation, mainly Joni's matured voice and Jaco Pastorius' bass. The following one, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, took these concepts to a new degree of loose improvisation, and saw the departure of most of her fans, while Joni was singing Baila mi rumba while jamming with Alex Acuña and Don Alias. Mingus, 1979's jazzy, oblique homage to musical giant Charles Mingus, was Mitchell's last, ignored masterpiece.

Considering that the number of songs culled from these four albums is minimal both in the Hits and Misses volumes, the compilation never quite conveys the real scope of Joni Mitchell's artistry.