Jazz innovator Herbie Hancock gathers some of the world's most talented musicians and singers, including Tina Turner, Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Luciana Souza, for River: The Joni Letters, a fresh new take on the songs of the inimitable Joni Mitchell.

Mitchell, who also performs on the album, first worked with Hancock in 1978 while recording Mingus, a collaborative project with the legendary bassist and composer Charles Mingus. That album was very much an experimental innovation of minimalist jazz and the wild, overplucked guitar sound of the late 1970s.

It also marked the first reunion of saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock in the studio since their gig as members of the Miles Davis band in 1969. Shorter again teams up with Hancock, and his crew, guitarist Lionel Loueke and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, who has played extensively with Mitchell.

Like Mingus, Hancock's River: The Joni Letters moves into an innovative territory where music and lyrics intersect. With the help of Mitchell's long-time producer and creative partner Larry Klein, Hancock delved deeply into the exhaustive body of Mitchell's work to find songs that expressed the breadth of her talent.

After months of poring over Mitchell's lyrics and music, Hancock and Klein pared down their list to 13 songs, and set about to assemble the top musicians to record the album. What they emerged with was-like Mingus-an innovative, easily misunderstood but clearly brilliant piece of art. "We wanted to create a new vocabulary, a new way of speaking in a musical sense," said Hancock. "We used the words to guide us. All of the music emanated from the poetry," echoed Klein.

Still, the two were careful to not take the lyrics too literally, Hancock saying, "Sometimes we decided to just let the lyric be. The music should be the cushion, if anything, under the lyric, that supports it, so the lyric is the focus."

The album opens with the timeworn classic, Court and Spark, as rendered by Norah Jones. Her honeyed voice has little of the grit and timbre of Mitchell's, but the nuances play with Hancock's piano as if they were meant to be together. British chanteuse Corinne Bailey Rae sings the title track, River, giving it a slightly more joyous tone than the longing lyrics originally provide.

Tina Turner gives a thrilling noir bent to Edith and the Kingpin, this writer's favorite song from the superb 1975 hit, The Hissing of Summer Lawns. The song of the "big man" and his new moll Edith has been covered by artists drawn to the Technicolor-scale picture it draws of two lovers pitted head to head for their very survival.

"Edith and the Kingpin always seemed to me to have a cinematic quality. I tried to write an orchestration that underscored many of the images in the lyric," said singer Elvis Costello, who covered the song on the album, A Tribute to Joni Mitchell, released this April by Warner Brothers. This same cinematic quality is apparent when Luciana Souza darkly intones the 1976 hit Amelia, from the lesser-known Mitchell album Hejira. Souza's own straddling of Brazilian jazz and classical music made her a perfect choice.

Mitchell herself sings The Tea Leaf Prophecy as a prayer to her mother, who recently passed away. The song is an autobiographical envisioning of the courtship of her parents, a WWII vision of a world where "Newsreels rattle the Nazi dread/ The able-bodied have shipped away/ Molly McGee gets her tea-leaves read/ You'll be married in a month they say/ 'These leaves are crazy!/ Look at this town there's no men left!/ Just frail old boys and babies.'" There is something about the composition that is heartrending, as if the audience is privy to a very intimate dialogue.

Hancock approaches the ensemble favorite Both Sides Now with a sprawling instrumental take, perhaps the only way to make something new of this old chestnut. An instrumental rendition is also given to Sweet Bird, a more sparse, less-favored cut off The Hissing of Summer Lawns. The album also presents two tracks that influenced Mitchell as a singer/songwriter: Nefertiti, first recorded by Hancock and Shorter on Miles Davis' album of the same name; and Duke Ellington's standard, Solitude.

River: The Joni Letters closes with Leonard Cohen's spoken-word presentation of Mitchell's The Jungle Line, a song inspired by French naïve painter Henri Rousseau's verdant jungle landscapes.

Mitchell herself is an artist, saying in 2000, "I have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstance." She has created hundreds of works in oils, acrylic and mixed media, providing most the artwork for her 40 years worth of musical releases.

In late September, Mitchell came to New York to mount a multi-media exhibit in Nolita's Voilet Ray Gallery on Mulberry Street. I had the fortune to accidentally stumble into the gallery to pet a friendly-looking dog. Noticing the artist's name on the gallery walls, I stood up and averred, "I love Joni Mitchell! She is the best singer/songwriter of all time!"

I turned to find myself facing Mitchell. I introduced myself, and she replied, in a smoky voice, "Hi. I'm Joan." We talked briefly about her exhibit, and noticing that it relied largely on computer imagery, I inquired, "I thought you worked primarily in oils." She paused a moment, flashed a sly smile that skewered sunlight across her angled cheekbone, and replied, "My oils are very personal."

River: The Joni Letters, is a lot like the dichotomy between Mitchell's art for consumers and personal works. Listeners who love jazz innovation, Herbie Hancock, and taking risks will love this album, which makes a poignant addition to any serious jazz fan's music collection. Fans of Mitchell will appreciate how Hancock pays homage to the way she is able to paint landscapes with her words. But in the end, it may leave you longing to see what is secret, personal treasure troves Mitchell keeps hidden behind the curtain.

Winnie McCroy is a freelance writer based in New York City. She has written for publications including The Advocate, Curve Magazine, and GO NYC.