Barber

Patricia Barber is a crack jazz pianist, an innovative composer, a singular vocal stylist, and among the most original lyricists/song-poets to come down the pipe in 40 years. Her use of metaphor and metonymy is woven inextricably into her trademark melodies, which create mental and sonic images that evoke insight and emotion. Smash, Barber's debut for Concord, is comprised of original material performed by an excellent band that includes guitarist John Kregor, bassist Larry Kohut, and drummer Jon Deitemyer.

Chicago pianist and vocalist Patricia Barber is making lots of ears burn. Her torch song touch speaks volumes to jazz vocal fanatics, but she has an adventuresome side that speaks likewise to fans of woollier jazz. Barber's vocal delivery is swaggering and burnished, always angling against oddball time signatures and often dropping weird lyrical science. From e.e. cummings poems, Barber moves into prescient observations on our society: "For company in the 21st century," she sings, "I go to the club, talk through the show / I'm so hip there's nothing about jazz / That I don't know." Trumpeter Dave Douglas and guitarist John McLean add a sharp edge, and the Choral Thunder Vocal Choir give Modern Cool soul-drenched dynamics that push the CD into the realm of instant classics.

Cellist Christian Poltéra turns to the music of Samuel Barber. He is joined by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton and pianist Kathryn Stott. Poltéra opens his programme with the Cello Concerto – one of only three concertos by Barber – which balances the natural lyric expressiveness of his earlier music with a more urgent, rhythmic and intense style.