Sour Apple

What an absolute joy this album is, surely Mitchell's most brilliant since his late-'60s masterpieces like Congliptious and Old Quartet. His Sound Ensemble, at the time comprised of four young and relatively unproven musicians, is the perfect foil for his compositions, able to handle the most abstract ideas as well as the down and dirty funky ones. The opening piece, "Sing/Song," is a perfect case in point, beginning with delicately lyrical, even pastoral flute work, seguing into a staccato quasi-march and from there into seemingly chaotic drones and welters, before ultimately emerging into the sunniest, most relaxed melody you can imagine, with trumpeter Hugh Ragin holding court…