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Patricia Barber
A Distortion of Love (July 6, 1992)

Patricia Barber — A Distortion of Love (July 6, 1992)

    Patricia Barber — A Distortion of Love (July 6, 1992)
♠   Barber performes in a cooly understated vocal style influenced as much by film noir as by Carmen McRae and Peggy Lee.
Born: November 8, 1955
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Album release: July 6, 1992
Recording date: November 25, 1991 — November 29, 1991
Record Label: Antilles
Duration:    
Tracks:
01. Summertime
02. Subway Station, No. 5     9:29
03. You Stepped Out Of A Dream     7:35
04. Parts Parallels
05. Or Not To Be     7:02
06. Yellow Car     5:48
07. Yet Another In A Long Series Of Yellow
08. I Never Went Away
09. My Girl     3:42
10. Be Myself     4:54
Personnel:
♠   Patricia Barber — piano, vocals
♠   Wolfgang Muthspiel — guitar
♠   Marc Johnson — bass
♠   Adam Nussbaum — drums, shakers, cheap shoes, finger snaps
♠   Carla White — finger snaps
♠   Big Kahuna — finger snaps
♦   Recorded on November 25th–27th & 29th, 1991
♦   Produced by Brian Bacchus
Written by:
♦   George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin / DuBose Heyward     1
♦   Patricia Barber     2, 4, 5, 6, 7
♦   Nacio Herb Brown / Gus Kahn     3
♦   Richard Rodney Bennett     8
♦   Smokey Robinson / Ronald White     9
♦   Howard Dietz / Arthur Schwartz     10
•   I inherited this when a friend died a while back. With very few exceptions, I’m not a fan of modern (read post big band) jazz, and this isn’t one of those exceptions. I do, however, find it interesting that one of the songs included here is “My Girl,” an early big hit by The Temptations and written by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White (one of the Miracles). This is her second release, and I guess she’s a pretty important artist since five of her 12 releases (not including comps) have also been issued by MFSL.
•   Pianist and singer Patricia Barber’s second album (and major–label debut) is a consistently interesting, but not always completely rewarding, array of original instrumentals, vocal standards, and surprise cover versions. The arrangement of “Summertime” that opens the program is eerie almost to the point of creepiness, and all the more effective for it: after a long instrumental prelude, Barber sings the lyrics over the most minimal bass–and–piano unison pedal point, her voice goosed with reverb and wailing softly like a ghost. “Subway Station #5,” the original composition that follows, is nervous, jumpy, barely tonal, and moves niftily from a contrapuntal and polyrhythmic introduction into a straight swing section. The problem is that it lasts almost ten minutes, and by the seventh or eighth minute, its ideas seem pretty well played out. “Or Not to Be” and “Yet Another in a Long Series of Yellow Cars” suffer from similar treatment. But her singing on “You Stepped Out of a Dream” and, especially, her sweet and touching rendition of the soul classic “My Girl” are quietly spectacular. There’s every reason to expect great things of her in the future.
Discography:
•   Split Premonition Records (1989)
•   Distortion of Love Antilles (1992)
•   Cafe Blue (Two versions) Blue Note, Premonition Records (1994)
•   Modern Cool (Three versions) Blue Note, Premonition Records (1998)
•   Companion Blue Note, Premonition Records (1999)
•   Nightclub Blue Note, Premonition Records (2000)
•   Verse Blue Note, Premonition Records (2002)
•   Live: A Fortnight In France Blue Note (2004)
•   Live: France 2004 DVD Blue Note (2005)
•   Mythologies (Two versions) Blue Note (2006)
•   The Premonition Years: 1994–2002 (Three versions: Originals, Standards, Pop songs) Blue Note (2007)
•   The Cole Porter Mix Blue Note (2008)
•   Smash Concord Records (2013)
♦   “The album, a brilliant collection of original songs, all dispatched with Barber’s famously voluptuous voice and steeped in her atmospheric instrumental settings, marks a major step forward for one of the most significant jazz artists to come out of Chicago in the past two decades or more. These songs, often ambiguous in meaning but extremely seductive in tone, crystallize the high craft of Barber’s writing while inspiring unorthodox arrangements and often wizardly solo pianism.” — Chicago Tribune
Website: http://patriciabarber.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PatriciaBarberMusic
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Patricia Barber
A Distortion of Love (July 6, 1992)

ALBUM COVERS XI.