Joni Mitchell has announced “Joni’s Jazz”, a career-spanning collection featuring recordings chosen by the legendary musician that reflect the genre’s profound influence on her music. The passion project, years in the making, arrives September 5th, 2025, as an 8-LP box set and as a 4-CD edition. Both formats include liner notes with rare and previously unseen photos and original artwork by Mitchell. An exclusive fine-art print is available as a gift-with-purchase exclusively from her website.
Spanning 61 tracks, “Joni’s Jazz” includes studio recordings, live performances, rare alternate takes, and material drawn from multiple decades and record labels. Among them are two previously unreleased 1980 demos, including one for “Be Cool.”
The June announcement notes that the set features contributions from some of Mitchell’s most important collaborators in jazz, among them Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Charles Mingus and Herbie Hancock. The latter wrote, “I thought she might have the quote-unquote limitations of rock ’n’ roll and folk. But she wasn’t like that. Joni is as cutting-edge as anybody. When I really began to pay attention to her music, I saw that she was already designing music that was not your typical rock.”
Mitchell, who calls Shorter her favorite collaborator, dedicates the collection to him following his passing in 2023. “It was a joy to play with him,” she writes. “He will be missed, but he will remain alive for me in this music.”
The collection’s liner notes include Shorter’s response to an interviewer’s question as to whether Mitchell had “jazz chops.” “I would say that her craft spilled over the borders of what people and critics who would want to keep her in a controlled setting,” he replied. “You know what I mean?”
Covering nearly every era of her recording career, the collection includes selections from “Songs To A Seagull”, “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”, “Hejira”, “Mingus”, “Turbulent Indigo”, “Both Sides Now” and more. It also features her guest appearances on projects like Hancock’s Award-winning album, “River: The Joni Letters”.
“Joni’s Jazz” draws from more than five decades of Mitchell’s recordings, going back to 1968 for “Marcie.” The most recent is her performance of “Summertime,” recorded live at the 2023 Newport Folk Festival. It marked Mitchell’s first full-length concert in over two decades — a powerful return that resonated around the world, and ultimately earned her a Grammy Award.
We’re pleased to present “Joni’s Jazz”, a passion project years in the making. This career-spanning collection features recordings chosen by Joni that reflect jazz’s profound influence on her music.
Spanning 61 tracks, JONI’S JAZZ includes studio recordings, live performances, rare alternate takes, and material drawn from multiple decades and record labels, among them are two previously unreleased 1980 demos.
Across the collection, the music follows Mitchell’s artistic growth — from the rhythmic layering of “Harry’s House / Centerpiece” to the bold experimentation of “The Jungle Line,” the narrative scale of “Paprika Plains,” and the airy, improvised feel of “A Chair In The Sky.”
As a self-portrait in sound, “Joni’s Jazz” captures an artist in conversation with jazz over a lifetime — never imitating, always inventing. Last year, in the liner notes for JONI MITCHELL ARCHIVES – VOL. 4, she joked, “People ask me my favourite of my albums, it’s going to be this one Now it is.
Order from Joni’s official store and you’ll receive an 8X8 original JMA art print of “Charlie The Bull Dying In Mexico,” while supplies last.
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