New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Patricia Barber artfully transforms Stevie Wonder's "All In Love Is Fair" into a delicate yet vibrant piano ballad, offering a special preview of what's to come on her upcoming album of standards, Clique (August 6, Impex Records). On "All In Love Is Fair," the
Chicago jazz star pulls the Innervisions track into her own aesthetic domain, embracing silence and empty space while pulling the lyrics' heartbreaking message inward. Captured in
Digital eXtreme Definition by GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer Jim Anderson, Barber's voice takes center stage with captivating clarity and the highest fidelity.
Listen to "All In Love Is Fair" here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/patriciabarber/all-in-love-is-fair-5
"'All in Love Is Fair' needs transparency, emptiness, a feeling that you're close to a precipice," Barber said of the vulnerable process of recording such a difficult song both technically and emotionally. "Sometimes in concert I start a song and fully expect my band to come in at some point (if we don't have an explicit arrangement) but to my surprise, they don't. They leave me out there on that ice floe all by myself. It is an ethos of this trio. We embrace 'silence.' And it is a specialty of Jim Anderson's as well. Capturing silence is a high art that comes with work and experience. At home I practiced outlining the harmony while playing the fewest amount of notes."
While Barber's previous album, Higher, showcased her incredible talent for composing moody art songs, Clique takes her back to the roots of her renown: her ability to connect and reinterpret American classics from all genres and eras. It puts her into an elite group, a class almost unto herself, a "clique" she leads. Across the record
Patricia "respects traditions, bends them to make her own points, and freshens them into something new," as observed by NPR's Susan Stamberg in Clique's liner notes. A recent review of Clique raved about the album's "undeniable sense of coolness and a consistent infectious groove that just grabs you and doesn't let go."
On lead single "This Town," WBGO says Barber's tender approach to the Frank Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood hit comes "juxtaposed with the fiery edge of her piano playing, in signature Barber fashion." Listen to "
This Town" and read more here: https://bit.ly/PatriciaBarberWBGO
Clique, recorded, mixed and mastered in
Digital eXtreme Definition (352.8kHz/32bit) at
Chicago Recording Company's Studio 5, is due out August 6th on Impex Records. Pre-order the album here via Impex Records: MQA CD / SACD
Clique Tracklist:
This Town (Lee Hazlewood)
Trouble Is A Man (Alec Wilder)
Mashup (Patricia Barber)
Samba de Uma Nota Só / One Note Samba (Antônio
Carlos Jobim/Newton Mendonça)
I Could Have Danced All Night (Lerner & Loewe)
The In Crowd (Billy Page)
Shall We Dance? (Rodgers & Hammerstein II)
Straight No Chaser (Thelonious Monk)
All In Love Is Fair (Stevie Wonder).
