Court & Spark [CD]

HYBRID SACD OF LUSH 1974 ALBUM PLAYS WITH SUPERB DETAIL, CLARITY, AND OPENNESSCourt and Spark, the most commercially successful album of Joni Mitchell's trailblazing career, arrived after a year in which she took some time to breathe and kept a low profile. The much-deserved break led to yet more breakthroughs. Demonstrably marking Mitchell's increasing drift toward jazz (and proclivity for absorbing the works of Miles Davis and John Coltrane), and teeming with heightened confidence, beautiful melodies, and shape-shifting arrangements, the lush 1974 record earned four Grammy nominations and was voted the Best Album of the Year in the prestigious Pazz & Jop poll. Court and Spark witnesses the singer-songwriter finding not only her footing with a group of musicians who seemingly understand her visions and desires - but expanding her lyrical palette and venturing further into territory no artist had dared explore. Balancing deceptively light compositions with underlying tensions, the work Rolling Stone named the 110th Best Album of All Time now possesses the rich, detailed sound it's always deserved on Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition hybrid SACD.