Review: MUSE/IQUE DEFIANTLY JONI: A SINGER/SONGWRITER BARES HER SOUL at Mark Taper Forum

Created and guided by Artistic & Music Director Rachael Worby, MUSE/IQUE presented Defiantly Joni: A Singer/Songwriter Bares Her Soul, featuring vocalists Chris Pierce, Effie Passero, and the DC6 Singers Collective, with the MUSE/IQUE Orchestra over two weekends July 11-19 at the Mark Taper Forum. The concert offered an intimate tribute to her unique genius, offering a revelatory look at the cultural milieu and musical streams that fed into her art, and then poured out of her Laurel Canyon home and into her unique ways of mixing other genres and artists into her music – or inspired them to create their own.

Joni Mitchell once said. “I’ve never been a joiner.” Indeed, she has only been defiantly herself as a fiercely independent singer and writer, one who even plays chords of her own invention that bucked genre and used a folk guitar to be what she always was: a poet, a jazz composer, and a painter.

Vocalist Effie Passero wows the audience performing “California” as the opening number of MUSE/IQUE’s Defiantly Joni: A Singer/Songwriter Bares Her Soul at the Mark Taper Forum. All photo credit Haoyuan Ren, courtesy of MUSE/IQUE

Mitchell was part of a fertile folk scene at a particular place and time, namely in her adopted hometown of Los Angeles “California” in the late 1960s and ’70s from her home atop Lookout Mountain in Laurel Canyon. From there she blazed her own eccentric trail, writing stream-of-consciousness confessions in a musical style that defied easy categorization. With her singular voice and raw honesty, she both transcended and heavily influenced the stars who orbited around her - among them Graham Nash, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Young, and David Crosby. In fact, when he heard Mitchell’s 1971 album Blue for the first time, Crosby recalled, “I felt like quitting the business and becoming a gardener.” Such was Joni Mitchell’s overwhelmingly inventive talent.

In fact, Joni’s song “Circle Game” featured Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on backing vocals during a time when she was living with Nash in the same house that inspired his song, “Our House” after she arrived home with a new vase for flowers on their mantle. Mitchell’s chemistry with James Taylor played out in the song “A Case of You” from her zenith 1971 album, Blue. “Love is touching souls,” she sang, “surely you touched mine, ’cause part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.” All three of these songs were performed to perfection, with Worby sharing background information on how each one came into existence.

In fact, Worby’s masterful narration during the entire performance opened the doors to an intimate and loving “house concert” about not only Joni Mitchell’s music but her entire life, from her birth in and education in Canada, surviving polio at age 9, developing her art as a painter and using her art as the cover of 16 of her albums, through her career as a solo performer as well as her amazing ability to inspire others to explore creating music and harmonies that had never been heard before. Along the way. she weathered the storms of celebrity and commercialism, of changing fads and a fickle industry, and always remained true to her own wandering artistic compass.

In the order presented, songs performed included “California,” “Chelsea Morning,” “Fiddle and Drum,” “Both Sides Now,” “Help Me,” and then the introduction of master dulcimer creator and artist Joellen Lapidus who demonstrated why Joni immediately fell in love with the instrument, accompanying the orchestra on “A Case of You” sung by Joni Mitchell sound-alike Effie Passero on vocals.

Joni’s life alongside James Taylor was then on display with “You Can Close Your Eyes” on which the two famously collaborated on a beautiful, harmonized duet, “Our House” performed flawlessly by Chris Pierce along with the two male singers from the DC6 Singers Collective, “The Circle Game” which Joni performed during her 1968 debut at the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood, and then standing bass player Michael Valerio demonstrated the type of sliding bass artistry which inspired Joni to bring fretless bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius (featured on Pat Metheny’s track “Bright Size Life” released in 1976) to Los Angeles to record with Joni on her 1976 hit “Coyote,” both of which were played featuring amazing MUSE/IQUE bass guitarist Michael Abraham.

Worby shared the interesting fact that “Coyote” was written by Joni while on tour with Bob Dylan, who made her realize a great song could be written about anything given the talent of a true poet. And that she was! Chris Pierce then demonstrated his talent on the harmonica during “I Shall Be Released,” written by Bob Dylan which Joni performed live several times, most notable at The Band’s farewell concert The Last Waltz in 1976.

Vocalist Chris Pierce

One more interesting fact I learned during the concert thanks to Worby was how Joni’s life was massively disrupted in 2015 by a brain aneurysm rupture, from which she slowly, and valiantly recovered… going on to stun the world in 2022 when she appeared on stage with Brandi Carlisle, one of her countless acolytes, at the Newport Folk Festival. There she sang through her timeless catalog in a voice, deepened with age and seasoned with a lifetime of pain and evolution and hard-won love, but still undeniably and always defiantly Joni.

And I consider myself one of the lucky ones who witnessed Joni performing live onstage during Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour” at the Hollywood Bowl last August during which Joni performed songs on dulcimer accompanied by Lauper on washboard! Talk about inventive music!   

Drummer Jamey Tate

The concert ended with Effie Passero performing a rousing rendition of “Big Yellow Taxi” which also featured the orchestra’s extraordinary drummer Jamey Tate and lively percussionist Mona Tavakoli, during which the audience was encouraged to join in during the famous refrain. And lastly, Carole King’s hit “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” was performed, on which Joni and James Taylor provided background and harmony vocals on King’s 1971 version of the song. That collaboration took place after the three artists got together while recording in three separate but adjacent studios on their own albums! A well-deserved standing ovation then ended the marvelous 90-minute concert.

It was an evening of painting as much as music, filled with portraits and photographs and stories of Joni Mitchell’s defiant journey - with Maestra Worby drawing laughs and gasps with her deeply woven tapestry of anecdotes and insights. The already intimate Mark Taper Forum was transformed into Joni’s house, inviting a sold-out audience to sit around the hearth and get lost in Joni’s genius.

Certainly MUSE/IQUE proved that Graham Nash’s words from 1970 remain true: Joni’s house is a very, very, very fine house! 

Seven performances of The concert offered an intimate tribute to her unique genius, offering a revelatory look at the cultural milieu and musical streams that fed into her art, and then poured out of her Laurel Canyon home and into her unique ways of mixing other genres and artists into her music – or inspired them to create their own. Defiantly Joni: A Singer/Songwriter Bares Her Soul were presented between July 11 and 19, 2026 at the Mark Taper Forum, in partnership with Center Theatre Group, and proudly sponsored by Classical California. For all the group’s magnificent concerts and ongoing drive to make great music accessible to everyone through their education programs, visit muse-ique.com where you can find information and tickets for future concerts, all of which I encourage you not to miss!

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