6th Annual Joni Mitchell Tribute, Ithaca NY, March 7 2015

Actually it started much earlier than 6 years ago, but Ithaca loves Joni Mitchell.  Patti Witten, my friend, and a wonderful singer/songwriter, came up with an idea to have an Only Joni Open Mic at a local coffee shop called Juna's Cafe.  To make a long story short, the first open mic was standing room only with people having to be turned away for signups.  The first person to perform pretty much set the stage for the next several years of Joni Mitchell tributes in Ithaca.  Joe Gaylord, a local blues musician, played The Wolf That Lives In Lindsay in the correct tuning, and insisted on audience participation during the wolf howling section.  What a night!  So here we are, two open mics and 5 annual tributes under our belt to March 7, 2015.  Again, a full house.

Joe Gaylord is now our impresario, and has coordinated all of the Joni Mitchell tributes at the Community School of Music and Arts.  All proceeds go to their scholarship fund for music and art students at the school.  

The performances this year were all solid, with deep tracks and crowd favorites, but the theme to me this year was harmonies.  Here is the setlist:

1. Joe Gaylord, voice and guitar - Rainy Night House and Moon At The Window.  Joe always captures the soulful feel of Joni's songs, and I love that he jazzed it up on MATW.  Beautiful tune!
2. Me! Sue Tierney McNamara, voice and guitar - I played in FFCGAC tuning.  I Don't Know Where I Stand and an unreleased tune, Go Tell The Drummer Man written around 1966-67.
3. Joannalyn Delacruz, piano - Joannalyn played a medley of Come In From The Cold and All I Want. An emotional and creative performance. 
4. Kara Eaton, voice and piano, with Donald, bass - Kara is one of our courageous students of Joni's music and played The Boho Dance from Hissing of Summer Lawns.  Donald backed her up with a great driving bass line.  
5. Laura Peters, voice and Sergio Pedro, guitar - Laura and Sergio performed the crowd pleasers Both Sides Now and Big Yellow Taxi.  Laura's voice was lovely and Sergio was faithful to Joni's guitar style.
6. Christine Evans, voice, Timothy, guitar, and Eric Miller, piano.  Christine and Eric are regulars at the Tributes and are fondly remembered for their authentic version of Woodstock a couple of years ago.  Eric brought his beautiful Wurlitzer electric piano to simulate the sound from the Ladies of the Canyon version.  This year they played See You Sometime, with Eric superb on piano, and Amelia, with Timothy doing an incredible job on electric guitar, reminiscent of Pat Methany from Shadows and Light. Christine's voice was just like a bell as usual.  So happy they were here again for this year's concert.  
7. Five 2 consists of Uniit Carruyo, Charisse Lucente, and Yvette Lucente.  This trio of amazing women sang Circle Game and Carey with some of the most beautiful harmonies I have ever heard. They really hit it out of the park.
8. Molly MacMillan, jazz pianist and also a regular at the Tribute concerts, always performs yeoman duties of backing up many of our artists on piano.  Kudos to Molly for doing that, but her own performances are also very memorable.  This year she played Trouble Child and a fantastic version of The Jungle Line with audience participation of ughs and ohhs led by Sue Terwilliger.  Colleen Kattau also helped out with harmonies on Trouble Child.  
9. Joe Crookston, a wonderful folk/bluegrass musician from Ithaca was invited by Joe Gaylord to participate in this year's event.  Joe won Album of the Year by the International Folk Alliance in Memphis, TN.  Joe played a stirring version of Woodstock on dobro.  He mentioned later that "Joni Mitchell is hard!"  I've heard many a seasoned musician express the same sentiment after preparing for our tributes!
10. Rachel Ozols is a senior in vocal performance from Ithaca College and appeared in the opera, "Little Women" as Jo at Ithaca College in February.  Rachel performed I Had A King with piano accompaniment.  Her voice was spectacular!
11. Patti Witten returned to the Tribute after a two year absence and brought with her cellist Sera Smolen to do a haunting rendition of Hejira.  We were traveling with Patti and Sera ... 
12. Alice Saltonstall, a wonderful singer, and another regular at the Tribute sang one of my favorite songs, I Think I Understand.  One of many performances on this night that recalled Joni's admonition that you must "sing in character." Alice achieved this exquisitely.  Sera Smolen added cello and Molly MacMillan on piano to add to the suspense.  
13. I think the most creative act of the night was Ephemera.  This group of women perform improvisational jazz a cappela and they mentioned in their introduction that they attended a workshop with Bobby McFerrin.  They opened their improvisational piece with Shadows and Light and improvised through about 5 more songs, including Come In From The Cold, Woman of Heart and Mind, and Chelsea Morning (i'm forgetting a couple others).  So creative and powerful.  
14. Colleen Kattau, another regular performer, played guitar and was accompanied by Mike Brandt on bass as they sang the two bookends of the album Hejira; Coyote and Refuge of the Roads.  Colleen always plays in the correct alternate tuning and actually thanked the Joni Mitchell Database authors for their work!  Mike really channeled Jaco Pastorius in this set.  Great songs, great musicians.  
15. Sally Ramirez is a very accomplished singer and actress (she revealed that she was a nurse on the Young and the Reckless!) and she graciously helped Joe Gaylord and I advertise the Tribute on the Nonesuch folk radio show on WVBR the week before the Tribute.  Sally sang amazingly on Blue and Carey.  
16. Sue Terwilliger, a wonderful guitarist, closed the show with a beautiful version of River, and called up Molly, Colleen and a member of Ephemera to do harmonies on the finale, Tea Leaf Prophecy.  The audience joined in with the refrain "study war no more."  

Alas, my favorite night of the year was over, but I loved every minute and so did the sold out crowd.  Thanks to Joe Gaylord for doing the heavy lifting to get this Tribute off the ground year after year.  The Joni Mitchell fans in Ithaca are forever grateful.