“THE HARMONIC LANGUAGE OF JAZZ, AS WELL AS THAT OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK, IS CERTAINLY RICH—LOOK HOW MUCH HAS COME OUT OF IT—BUT IT’S CIRCUMSCRIBED. I STARTED WANTING TO HEAR SOMETHING ELSE.” —Patricia Barber
Patricia Barber, the performer known for boldly blurring the lines between poetry, jazz, and art song, has announced the forthcoming release of a new all-standards album Clique, due out August 6th in breathtaking hi-fi. The long-awaited successor to Nightclub, her critically acclaimed and fan-favorite first all standards album, Clique features a tracklist of tunes that Barber has frequently performed as encores throughout her illustrious career, including classics by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stevie Wonder, Lee Hazlewood, Lerner & Loewe, Thelonious Monk and more. After growing an international cult following, earning the first-ever Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to a non-classical songwriter, and becoming an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Patricia Barber is back with a “silk, velvet, languid, warm” journey through music history as she “respects traditions, bends them to make her own points, and freshens them into something new,” as noted in the album liner notes by NPR’s Susan Stamberg.

Patricia Barber’s unique style and unusual voice made her an easy target for critics in the early days of her career. Her piano playing and singing, while inventive, never ventured close enough to the avant-garde to earn her artistic license, and her insistence on writing her own material and adapting songs from the pop world made her difficult to categorize. A tireless performer who refused to conform to more conventional vocal jazz idioms, she worked her way up through the Chicago jazz scene slowly, almost reluctantly, after having spent several years in Iowa attending college and performing with local groups.

Nightclub stands out as a quiet gem in Patricia Barber’s catalog - offering lush, emotionally rich interpretations of familiar jazz standards in a style that’s intimate yet powerful. While it leans more traditional, the album isn’t just a standards exercise; it’s a deep dive into mood, space, and subtle storytelling.
If you're drawn to jazz that feels personal, moody, and performed with restraint and depth - Nightclub is a compelling listen. And if you're an audiophile, the recording’s quality alone might make it a beloved favorite.

Американская пианистка, вокалистка и композитор Патрисия Барбер (Patricia Barber) - это авангард новой женской школы джазовых музыкантов. Лет десять-пятнадцать назад ее коллеги по жанру на свой страх и риск начали осваивать ту интригующую территорию импровизации, которая пролегала между классическими балладами и техникой смешения ритмов, создающей новые стандарты. Она была в числе первопроходцев. Сегодня Патрисия Барбер обладает репутацией артистки, жестко отстаивающей свою независимость и уделяющей максимум внимания «творческой пристрелке», тщательной и всесторонней оценке будущего альбома. Ее интуиция в этом смысле непогрешима, а потому неудивительна любовь многочисленных фанов, которые за двадцать с лишним лет джазовой карьеры появились у Патрисии сначала в родном Чикаго, а затем по всей Америке и далеко за ее пределами. Начиная с середины 80-х, артистка подготовила и издала девять альбомов, на которых представила не только джазовые обработки поп-мелодий и известные стандарты, но и композиции собственного сочинения.

Patricia Barber is an American songwriter, composer, singer, and pianist.

Pianist/vocalist Patricia Barber is the Alanis Morissette of the jazz world. Her serpentine, poetic songs teeter between deftly witty and awkwardly Latinate. Each album is more ambitious than the last, taking her deeper into avant-garde territory both lyrically and instrumentally. Verse is no exception. Case in point: "I Could Eat Your Words," a canny bit of word play in the tradition of "Peel Me a Grape," in which Barber barely gets away with words like "provocation" and "syllogistically," only to sum things up with the devastating line, "sip the spit from your bittersweet rhyme." The indelible track here, though, has to be "If I Were Blue," featuring the line, "If I were blue, like David Hockney's pool/Dive into me and glide under a California sky/Inside your mouth and nose and eyes am I." It's perhaps the best thing Barber has ever written -- it could be considered serious modern poetry if only it didn't rhyme. About the biggest complaint one can lodge against Barber is her insistent denial of melody. Her voice is soft, almost matter-of-fact, and she more or less hints at singing. Obviously, lyrical intent is more important to Barber than how she carries a tune, and her voice does seem more suited to whispering torch songs cabaret-style, such as on "Dansons la Gigue," than delivering any vocal gymnastics. It's just that sometimes her songs could be showcased better with a consistently delivered vocal melody. However, she makes up for her lack of sonorousness (to use a Barber kind of word) with intricate musical arrangements, this time around augmented by the Miles Davis-cum-Lester Bowie trumpet of Dave Douglas. Barber's is a world of cloaked intentions, and Douglas' playful vibrato works like the flame of a candle illuminating her soft, shadowy corners.

Chicago native and classically trained pianist Patricia Barber's sixth album is a collection of downtempo standards, perfect for a rainy day. Taking on classics like "Autumn Leaves," "I Fall in Love Too Easily," "Bye Bye Blackbird," or even "Alfie" is always a risk, but her confident vocals and interpretations eradicate any doubt that she is a master. Her production is spare, allowing her to sing with such melancholy it's almost eerie. Not many performers can relay such harrowing feeling without over-emoting, but Barber makes it seem effortless. Nightclub is an appropriate title; listening to these love songs is like being in a smoky room, courted by a lounge singer. This is a classy, solid effort.

Companion was recorded in a special three-night series of shows in July, 1999 at Chicago's famed Green Mill jazz club -- an unusually short amount of time to produce a live album. To mine as much material as possible from those nights the performances were run more like recording sessions than live shows, with the crowd reverently hushed. Patricia Barber is in her element and the only thing that seems to have suffered for the recording circumstances is the album's length -- at seven songs and 40 minutes, it walks the line between standard EP and full-length size. One surmises that it might have been longer had there been more album-quality material from the performances. Recalling the energy that was present on her critically worshipped Café Blue album, there is an ease and creativity on Companion which makes her fans' devotion understandable. Barber has been criticized for being a jazz singer in the loosest sense -- her style borrows heavily from R&B and she often covers pop songs (Sonny Bono's "The Beat Goes On" is a sheer stylish delight), and her song "If This Isn't Jazz" answers that criticism with a thumb to the nose. What many critics fail to notice, however, is the strength of her musicianship. Sexism within the industry keeps many from seeing female jazz performers playing roles other than those of vocalists -- Barber's warm, breathy voice and creative phrasing are wonderful, for sure, but what really shines are her arrangements. With a talented band behind her, on Companion Barber has made magic with her compositions, her piano playing, and yes, her voice. Intended to be a companion to Modern Cool, this album of mostly previously unrecorded material serves as an excellent introduction to all of her work.