Patricia Barber - The Cole Porter Mix
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CD Details
Artist: Patricia BarberEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-09-16
Music Label: Blue Note Records
Product features:
- BARBER PATRICIA THE COLE PORTER MIX
- Easy to Love
- I Wait for Late Afternoon and You
- I Get a Kick out of You
- You're the Top
- Just One of Those Things
- Snow
- C'est Magnifique
- Get out of Town
- I Concentrate on You
- In the Still of the Night
- What Is This Thing Called Love?
- Miss Otis Regrets
- The New Year's Eve Song
Music reviews of The Cole Porter Mix
Music Review: Oui, C'est Magnifique!!
Rating: 5 Stars
Prior to this CD, "Cole Porter Mix," I did not own any of Patricia Barber's recordings. So when a friend of mine whose recommendations I trust, suggested that I buy it and listen to it, I did not hesitate and purchased the CD early this year.
Patricia Barber's voice has the same quality that I look for in a jazz singer and that is why I enjoy listening to her interpretations of some of Cole Porter's classics. On all tracks, she does not only sing but plays the piano as well. Her team of support musicians did a great job in their respective instruments: Chris Potter on tenor sax (tracks 3, 5, 7, 10, 13), Neal Alger on acoustic/electric guitar (all tracks), Michael Arnopol on bass (tracks 1-11, 13), Eric Montzka on drums/percussion (tracks 2-10, 13) and Nate Smith on drums/percussion (tracks 1, 11, 12).
It is nice to know that Patricia Barber is not only a singer/musician, she is also a songwriter. She wrote the words and composed the music of three of the tracks here: "I Wait For Late Afternoon and You," "Snow" and "The New Year's Eve Song."
Some of the beautiful highlights of the album include smooth-flowing, pretty cool deliveries of "Easy To Love," "I Concentrate On You" and "C'est Magnifique," the particular track that evokes the romantic sound and spirit of Paris. It also showcases Ms. Barber's ability to play a unique musical instrument called melodica, and Neal Alger's enthralling guitar work. "In The Still of The Night" is another favorite where Ms. Barber's voice is more pronounced, and her pianistic flair is more arresting. It has excellent instrumentation and her delivery is engagingly effervescent ending with Chris Potter's wailing saxophone. He sounded like an alumni from "Charlie Parker School of Music." "I Get A Kick Out of You" is given a dramatic reading but it is Chris Potter's outstanding tenor sax solo that steals the limelight. "Just One of Those Things" is the jazziest track while "Get Out of Town" shows off the versatile singer in her most commanding form.
I suggest that you listen to this recording with your undivided attention using your headphones to completely appreciate Ms. Barber's splendid vocal artistry and the excellent interplay among the musicians. It is also one of the most wonderful tributes to the timeless music of Cole Porter.
To my friend...thank you muchly for a great recommendation. It's a keeper! Now it's my turn to highly recommend it to the world.
Description of The Cole Porter Mix
Sublimely intimate but hugely expressive investigation of the brilliant songs of Cole Porter by the wonderfully artful singer/pianist and composer Patrica Barber. She breathes fresh life into his music as well as contributing three typically intelligent originals. Like her label mate Wilson, Barber is a genuine one off and Cole Porter Mix is un-missable. "One of the most accomplished female jazz singer-pianists on the planet. Chicago-based Barber has a voice that caresses and challenges and cajoles and taunts and teases every nuance of meaning from each ambiguous syllable". The Guardian "Even a casual listener would soon be won over by her seductive voice, her forceful soloing and, not least, her immaculate quartet arrangements". The Times "The most fearless, most intellectually stimulating and, by extension, most interesting singer-songwriterpianist on the American jazz scene." JazzTimes For more than two decades, Barber, based in Chicago, has led her own band and released a series of highly acclaimed, strikingly singular albums, that have seen her recognised as one of the greatest songs tylists on the planet. For her latest album, singer/pianist Barber applies her austere but beautiful heartfelt expressiveness to breath new life into the music of one of the Great American Songbook composers. The Cole Porter Mix not only spotlights her artful interpretations of Porter's songs but also features three Porter-inspired originals. "Cole Porter has always been my songwriting idol," says Barber. "I love his music and I've been singing his songs for so many years." Barber's band includes guitarist Neal Alger, who has been performing with her the past six years, and bassist Michael Arnopol, who has worked with her since 1980. "We're like brother and sister," she says. "We learned jazz together and played all those gigs in Chicago together when I was coming up." Drum duties are shared by Eric Montzka and Nate Smith, while tenor saxophonist Chris Potter guests on five tracks. Barber plays piano throughout as well as contributes melodica colours to some tunes, including her gem, "The New Year's Eve Song," that closes the album. Another original on The Cole Porter Mix is theLeave it to the intrepid Patricia Barber to take on so well-worn a songbook as Cole Porter?s with such smoldering originality. Of course, for 15 years now, Barber has been something of an Ella Fitzgerald meets the madwoman-in-the-attic, a sheen of peerless respectability masking an uncompromising taste for the respectfully subversive. With 2006?s seminal Mythologies, Barber took the Guggenheim and ran with it, planting one foot in Ovid and the other in Harlem. Here, her unflappable taste for danger takes her deep into the Porter oeuvre. But in Barber?s hands, every old familiar lyric takes on new and usually devious entendre. Delivered in her heavily honeyed timbre, shopworn standards like "I Get a Kick Out of You" (with its new chord structure) and "You?re the Top" (with its new lyrics) suggest the fecund extra layers that their titles--generously interpreted--imply. As usual, Barber?s top-notch band delivers a flawless performance. If the arrangements lean a bit heavily on the sax, it?s because one doesn?t record with Chris Potter and not give the guy some breathing room. "I asked Chris if he ever plays schmaltzy," Barber explains. "He said no, but he could if I wanted him to." And so he does, not least on "The New Year?s Eve Song," the album?s closer and one of three Barber originals included here. Despite the self-admitted "hubris" involved in including her own material amidst this most canonical set list, the gamble pays off (check out the incomparable "Snow"). Since Patricia Barber has never been interested in mere nostalgia anyway, the result is an album that--although it looks at first glance like a relaxing sinecure--packs all the daring, velvet punch that Barber fans have to come to expect. And (more importantly) to trust. --Jason Kirk
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