Blake Mitchell Fucks Hazel Hoffman

Joni Mitchell reached her commercial high point with Court and Spark, a remarkably deft fusion of folk, pop, and jazz which stands as her best-selling work to date. While as unified and insightful as Blue, the album – a concept record exploring the roles of honesty and trust in relationships, romantic and otherwise – moves away from confessional songwriting into evocative character studies: the hit "Free Man in Paris," written about David Geffen, is a not-so-subtle dig at the machinations of the music industry, while "Raised on Robbery" offers an acutely funny look at the predatory environment of the singles bar scene. Much of Court and Spark is devoted to wary love songs: both the title cut and "Help Me," the record's most successful single, carefully measure the risks of romance, while "People's Parties" and "The Same Situation" are fraught with worry and self-doubt (standing in direct opposition to the music, which is smart, smooth, and assured from the first note to the last).

Trumpeter Enrico Rava has proven himself adept at virtually every style of jazz, from bop through the avant-garde. For this short recording, he teams up with third-stream pianist Ran Blake in a series of 12 emotionally drenched tunes emphasizing the kind of dark, foreboding atmosphere for which Blake is well-known.

With Kent's Songwriter Series well established as a regular feature of the Ace catalogue, they felt it was time to salute more great tunesmiths whose success as writers has been largely confined to the soul/R&B market. Few are more deserving than Phillip Mitchell a cult hero to many soul fans as a writer and a singer, and a man whose catalogue of songs is as consistently good as it is prolific. His songs have been recorded by some of the biggest names in soul particularly during the 1970s, when his name appeared under the title of many high-profile 45s. A quick perusal of the artists featured here will demonstrate how highly Phillip's songs were rated by his peers. It was not easy to whittle the mountain of great versions of Mitchell songs down to a representative 23 and there s plenty of scope for a follow up if this one sells as well as Kent expect. In-depth annotation, copious illustrations and a value-for-money, near 80 minutes worth of music will make this a must for every serious soul enthusiast.