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In Reply to: Re: Any interesting new jazz pianists about? posted by David Aiken on December 16, 2006 at 12:35:32:
Patricia Barber - heard her for the first time on the radio talking and playing some tracks. I have to say what I heard sounded pretentious - more arthouse mood music than substance. This was a very restricted chunk - three numbers and some chat - so I may have missed something. I'm always on the lookount for fine female singers as well - like Dee Dee Bridgewater, Claire Martin and also Diana Krall whern she's doing originals and not standards which I can hear better elsewhere.
Follow Ups:
Her records are, to me, pretentious bullshit sprinkled with the occasional moment of brilliance. Her band is outstanding, but she is a poseur extraordinaire IMO.
dh
Do yourself a favor and try to see the DVD of the Patricia quartet
a forthnight in France, it also includes lot's of interviews with PB
and will respond to many of your doubts about her musicianship.
This woman is misunderstood by lot's of people but she is just a
brilliant musician, composer, arranger.
I'll watch for an opportunity to check the video out, but I don't expect my perspective to change much. I've heard a few of her records, and only one track, "Yesterdays", stands out for some interesting piano/ensemble work. I found the Cafe Blue album to be unlistenable--mostly because of her ridiculous writing, and I think her Portugese sounds like a sick parody of one of the world's most beautiful languages. I saw her live a few times when I lived in Chicago too (I lived across the street from the Green Mill for a while), and know all of her regular sidemen--in fact I played with, or subbed for, all of them.All that said, I remain open. Maybe the DVD will be some sort of epiphany for me but, like I said, I doubt it. I'll see if my local library has it. There's no way I'm going to go out and just buy it.
I might not put it quite as strongly, but I pretty much agree with your assessment. For a while I think I was awed by the combination of extraordinarily good sound and what I then perceived to be a somewhat fresh approach to the jazz vocal. Eventually I found her to be stilted, overly stylized and pretentious, to borrow one of your well chosen words. It might, however, be interesting to hear her tackle a CD of instrumentals only.
Eventually I found her to be stilted, overly stylized and pretentious, to borrow one of your well chosen words> >I think it was the bit of her interview where she said (paraphrase)"I wanted to write a song about being blue - like the great standards and Elvis Costello's Almost Blue. I decided I had to do something different so I imagined I was actually the colour blue. The song was very difficult to write and it was a year before I was satisfied with it"
- there followed a song which apart from references to Goya and David Hockney's swimming pools was utterly undistinguished in any way. A years work? - Ho hum, most of us can write a song like that in a day and leave space for a shave, a good meal and a few phone calls.
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