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http://www.patriciabarber.com

Patricia Barber - piano & vocals
Neal Alger - guitar
Michael Arnopol - bass
Eric Montzka - drums

Recorded in March and April 2004 at clubs in three French cities (L’Arsenal in Metz, La Coursive in La Rochelle and La Cigale in Paris), Live: A Fortnight In France features Barber delivering five originals and five covers rendered with romance, edginess and esprit. “This recording is a concert,” says Barber. “What you hear is what we play at the Green Mill [in Chicago] on any given night. It’s a typical show: fifty percent covers and fifty percent originals.”

"This is what Patricia Barber has: adventurous piano playing, a low-vibrato alto on perpetual rhythm and timbre alert and smart songs about the way we think and live, not just the way we love... This is the kind of art we need to be on the lookout for everywhere. The 21st century has started. We can’t afford to be left behind." New York Times

"Cross Diana Krall with Susan Sontag, and you get Patricia Barber, whose throaty, come-hither vocals and coolly incisive piano are displayed to devastating effect." Time Magazine

"The coolest singer/songwriter around." Los Angeles Times

With voice, words, and piano, Patricia Barber delivers intelligence and insouciance. She is a singular jazz singer and pianist, but for the last few years it is her songwriting that has been attracting big attention. In concert, she confides by whispering a song of sweet nothings into the listener’s ear, then surprises with a rock-edged and trashy song about a one-night stand. She comes across more street-smart than book-smart.

And now Barber’s gone academic, though the result is perhaps the most accessible music of her career. Over the past two years, Barber has been busy recording an eleven-song cycle. She titled it Mythologies and based it on The Metamorphoses of Ovid – the centuries-old classic of Western literature, filled with gods, mortals and apparently, humor.

“Ovid was a Roman poet who was putting a spin on Greek mythology,” says Barber. “I just couldn’t believe what a wonderful writer he was – how funny and smart and brilliant are these characters he created. He doesn’t flesh them out so I can understand why opera composers and librettists throughout history have used Ovid again and again.”

But – a jazz song cycle based on characters from Greek mythology? “I was definitely looking at other song cycles for inspiration, but they tend to be more in the classical realm. There were very few that I can recall in what I would call popular music, and jazz song cycles just don’t seem to exist. It occurred to me that I could write a song cycle based on these characters but it was something that I thought would be a luxury and I would need some time off.”

Time off does not come too easy to a career-focused jazz performer like Barber who has spent years developing a unique sound and an international following. For close to fifteen years, the Chicago-based singer/pianist has led her own band, toured tirelessly and is now, in every sense of the word, a success. She has recorded a series of utterly original and critically acclaimed albums, including Cafe Blue, Modern Cool, Nightclub, Verse, and Live: A Fortnight in France.