While most of America is going ga-ga over the pop versions of "jazz" singers, one voice stands out. Patricia Barber, a very talented singer and piano player from Chicago who does not benefit from automatic acceptance of fans-of-necessarily-gorgeous-performers, nevertheless provided us with the best vocal album of 2004. Fortnight is, perhaps, Blue Note's answer to Verve's Live in Paris with Diana Krall, and it is better. While Barber has dipped into the jazz-pop genre (Nightclub), her career and reputation has been built on modernistic tropes and approaches (exemplified by the 90's classic Modern Cool) that are much more cerebral than sensual, although she can sing "hot" when she wants to. The operating irony is that Barber is gay, a fact that brings all sorts of rainbow tensions to her songs, especially when she covers tunes like "Witchcraft" and "Norwegian Wood," where she sings Lennon's words about a fling with a woman with equal facility and tension. One major difference in musical approach, when you compare her work with Krall's, is the accompanying guitar playing. Here, Barber's longtime band mate Neal Alger provides a more angular, edgy tone that neatly melds with Barber's alternately thoughtful and tense phrasings. The recording is excellent, the band tight, and the music never dull.
4 tocks
Similar sounding releases
2003Lizz WrightSalt
2003Kurt EllingMan In The Air
2000Darol Anger / Mike MarshallBrand New Can
2004John AbercrombieSelected Recordings
2003Peter CincottiPeter Cincotti
2002David Gonzalez and the Poetic License BandCity of Dreams
