Patricia Barber reminds me of Thelonius Monk. No, she doesn't sound like him on the piano, and her compositions, as wonderful as they are, won't be mistaken for his. Besides, she sings (beautifully); he didn't. But damned if she isn't just as eccentric as he was on the bandstand.
Patricia Barber, Cape Town, 25 March 2011. (All photos copyright John Edwin Mason, 2011. Click on any image to see a larger version.)
Forgive me for being so petty. But if you're seeing Barber for the first time, as I was last Friday night, this is what's going to grab your attention, first -- her grimaces, grunts, and gestures. Fortunately, they're not the only things. Far from it.
Patricia Barber, Cape Town, 25 March 2011.
She's got a gorgeous voice -- dark, low, and expressive. Just about every song that she sang was a love song for grownups -- a mixture of wit, wisdom, and a hint of cynicism. I liked them all.
Patricia Barber, Cape Town, 25 March 2011.
The next thing I noticed (and by this time, my mind was beginning to leave her eccentricities far behind) was her piano playing. She opened gently, with a bossa nova, but she quickly switched gears. From there on, it was muscular playing. The key words were strength, power, and drive.
Neal Alger, Cape Town, 25 March 2011.
Barber wrote most, if not all, of the compositions that she and her band (Neal Alger, guitar; Larry Kohut, bass; Eric Montzka) played. I especially appreciated the way that she was stretching the boundaries of both jazz composition and small group performance. Some of her songs and most of Alger's and Montzka's soloing seemed to owe as much to rock and funk as to jazz. Soloing wasn't really the point, however. The set was more of an extended musical conversation between the performers, between equal partners.
Patricia Barber and Larry Kohut, Cape Town, 25 March 2011.
As you can tell, Barber won me over. I especially admire the was that she's reimaging what jazz performances can be. (Other festival headliners such as Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding were doing the same thing, although in quite different ways.)
This is one of a series of posts about music makers at the just concluded Cape Town International Jazz Festival. You can read others here and here.
Thank you for posting this John - unfortunately Mike and I were really exhausted after the SAJE Jazz Festival and weeklong SAJE outreach workshops, and we just couldn't stay for Patricia's set - so sorry to have missed it as I would love to have seen her "live".
Regards,
Diane
Posted by: Diane Rossi | 04 April 2011 at 05:49 AM