Joni Mitchell remains a successful performer 16 years after her first album because she always has sensed musical changes in the air and moved with them.

She originally tapped American musical nerve in the late '60s with a folk-music approach. "Ladies of the Canyon" and "Blue" typified that period with an austere production that featured Miss Mitchell's piercing voice to the exclusion of everything except piano and acoustic guitar.

"Court and Spark" marked the vocalist's move toward mainstream pop with more instrumentation and lush production. At the same time, her style moved toward jazz because of her association with saxophonist Tom Scott's band—the L.A. Express. "Mingus," on which she collaborated with the late jazz bassist Charlie Mingus, took her even further into that realm in '79, although commercially it was one of her least successful albums.

Three years later, Miss Mitchell is back, and although she hasn't attempted another purely jazz release, she has incorporated some of the nuances used on "Mingus" and the tour that followed. The result is an extremely sophisticated pop album with a definite jazz flavor.

The pop production values that made "Court and Spark" so successful are back. Also, Miss Mitchell has used crack session men such as Toto's Steve Lukather on guitar and Weather Report's Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone to offer sharp solos in counterpoint to her vocals.

One thing that hasn't really changed is Miss Mitchell's lyrical approach—she's still capable of being alternately romantic (the title track and "Ladies Man") and cynical ("Be Cool").

"Chinese Cafe (Unchained Melody)" opens the album with a rich sound accented by the ringing bass of Larry Klein, reminiscent of the tones bassist Jaco Pastorius used throughout the vocalist's most recent live album.

Miss Mitchell is feeling a bit melancholy as the album opens:

We were wild in the old days.
The rock 'n' roll days.
Now your kids are coming up straight.
And my child's a stranger.

A moment later, she's off on the wings of Mr. Lukather's wailing electric guitar asking a lover, "What makes you run?" Like most of us, Miss Mitchell knows all about the twists of romance, but she realizes that she is powerless to do much except wonder why. Or, as she says in the cool ballad "Ladies Man": "I guess you try to refuse what you think you can't handle."

"Be Cool" is the flip side of the coin. Rather than rue the loss of a lover, she counsels: Kiss off that flaky valentine.
You're nobody's fool.
Be cool fool.

"(Love's other fish in the sea...)" Perhaps this ability to be alternately romantic and hard-nosed almost in the same breath is what makes Miss Mitchell endearing to her fans. Or maybe it's the high-quality music she creates that carries a listener easily from soft ballad to uptempo rock song.

Whatever your poison, it's here in abundance on this fine album.