Lazaro Vega Posted January 13, 2006 Report Share Posted January 13, 2006 http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainmen...ent_music-photo JAZZ REVIEW Barber's sneak preview radically provocative By Howard Reich Tribune arts critic January 9, 2006 In an era when most female jazz vocalists still are cooing love songs drenched in nostalgia, a few are searching for something fresh to say. None may be probing more deeply into the meaning of life and humanity than Chicago singer-pianist Patricia Barber, who over the weekend offered a preview of an artistically ambitious, potentially revelatory song cycle. Playing before a standing-room-only crowd at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barber on Saturday evening performed excerpts of her forthcoming "Mythologies," an extended work that has been three years in the making. Inspired by Ovid's "Metamorphoses" -- the same text that Chicago director Mary Zimmerman famously adapted for Lookingglass Theatre in 1998 -- Barber's suite similarly seeks to express ancient truths in contemporary idioms. But Barber's task may be more challenging than Zimmerman's, for a jazz composer does not have the benefit of working with actors and costumes, dialogue and scenic design. Instead, the musician who chooses to address the texts of a venerable Roman poet has at her disposal only melody and harmony, rhythm and rhyme. Barber has hit on an ingenious strategy, crafting a single song about each of 11 mythological characters who inhabit Ovid's "Metamorphoses." By creating musical vignettes that evoke the spirit of Orpheus and Narcissus, Oedipus and Persephone, Barber brilliantly has found the means to re-imagine a piece of literature for a jazz context. Better still, she radically changes the musical setting for each of her songs. Thus she sketches one character simply by singing alone at the piano, another by collaborating with a splendid chamber choir and yet another by bringing on a trio of young hip-hop singers. The expressive range of this music proves thrilling, even though all of it clearly derives from a single sensibility: the spare, sometimes austere jazz idiom that long has been Barber's forte. If listeners did not know that Barber's opus had been inspired by Ovid's work, they nonetheless could savor these excerpts for their skill in merging melodic elegance and literary wit. These songs, in other words, stand on their own as immensely attractive jazz pieces, apart from their source material. Listen to the sleek lyric phrases and quasi-rock backbeat of "The Moon," the clever pop hooks and wicked social commentary of "Hunger," the sumptuous choral voicings and rapturous poetic imagery of "The Hours," and it's clear that a first-rate songwriter is at work. The excerpts of "Mythologies" that Barber performed at the MCA, in a concert organized by the indispensable Chicago arts group Contempo, included several vividly effective performances. Among them, this listener will not soon forget the hip-hop artists of the Chicago Children's Choir firing off Barber's text, while the members of Choral Thunder cried out, "Who'll save us now? Who'll save us now?" Though a final appraisal of Barber's "Mythologies" will have to wait until a complete performance (the work will be released on Blue Note Records in August), this preview foreshadowed what could be one of the major jazz events of the year. ---------- hreich@tribune.com Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted January 13, 2006 Report Share Posted January 13, 2006 Thanks for that Lazaro. For me, Patricia Barber is easily the most interesting and rewarding female singer/songwriter around today. I eagerly await this new release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted January 13, 2006 Report Share Posted January 13, 2006 I have mixed feelings about Barber and wasn't impressed when I saw her live, but she is always striving for something new, and I appreciate that. This sounds like the kind of project I would be interested in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted September 13, 2006 Report Share Posted September 13, 2006 So I've just heard the track Icarus off Mythologies. Not bad. Sort of a rock beat. The ending of the song is very dense with guitar (multi-tracked unless I am mistaken) on top of piano without any vocals. I'm still not ready to buy this, but if the rest of the album is similar, I probably will eventually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazaro Vega Posted September 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 13, 2006 "Hunger" is timely with the mainstreaming of organic food (see www.thenation.com for their "Food" issue). Barber drew a great crowd to Grand Rapids several years ago and performed enthusiastically. She mentioned enjoying the sound of the room. P.B. can come back in her stocking feet any time she wants to. Dug Grazyna Auguscik's version of Barber's "Almost Blue" on Auguscik's "The Light" CD. Arranged for voice, guitar, bass and cello. There's a mess of jazz singers in Chicago if that's your flave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzypaul Posted September 20, 2006 Report Share Posted September 20, 2006 Call me wrong on this one (and I probably am), but Mythologies strikes me as the kind of album that can only be listened to in one sitting, from beginning to end. Trying to listen to it track by track, it didn't seem to really captivate me. But, when I popped the disc in and listened first track to last track, it really clicked. It isn't really my cup of tea, but I liked the ambition. And, I gotta say, live, she's a different (and more lively and interesting) animal, to be sure. As well, I also have to agree with Lazaro, there's a ton of great singers doing some cool things around town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 "Hunger" is timely with the mainstreaming of organic food (see www.thenation.com for their "Food" issue). Barber drew a great crowd to Grand Rapids several years ago and performed enthusiastically. She mentioned enjoying the sound of the room. P.B. can come back in her stocking feet any time she wants to. Dug Grazyna Auguscik's version of Barber's "Almost Blue" on Auguscik's "The Light" CD. Arranged for voice, guitar, bass and cello. There's a mess of jazz singers in Chicago if that's your flave. Lazaro: As a fellow songwriter (and much more beginning lyricist than she) I have to say I find her lyrics literate, well-crafted, and clever (perhaps too clever---well they said that about a guy named Cole Porter and he didn't do too shabbily). So I appreciate her intellectual peregrinations. They weren't pretentious to me. They're funny. I also dug her group when I heard them on a live radio shot a few years back. Having said that, one thing I did find to be MIA when I took home the one CD I did: melody. I did not find a memorable melody in one tune, sorry to say. Perhaps I had the wrong CD. I don't remember the title. It's recent and she's sitting barefoot on the floor. Talented lady, but melody sil vous plait. It kind of goes with songs... PS: Almost Blue doesn't kill me. I was surprised when Chet Baker took it on. I shouldn't have been. I figure it must have been for reasons---ahem---other than music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazaro Vega Posted September 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2006 (edited) Patricia sings a charming version of "Summer Samba" with its cute little melody...Her "postmodern" songbook takes in melodic material from pop, things which sound like kitch (sp) in a jazz context. In terms of her songs, yes, her music often moves in its own narrative way, a la "Lush Life". Edited September 22, 2006 by Lazaro Vega Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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