Patricia Barber • Nightclub
This is a long way of saying that Patricia Barber is not among those singers whose talents are displayed more at audio shows than in jazz clubs. She is not on the same rarified level as Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, but she has earned her place as a serious talent spanning contemporary jazz and pop. Both a talented singer and pianist, Barber established her career in Chicago, where her father played alto saxophone with top names. She worked the club scene until 1994, when Café Blue, her release on Premonition Records, took off -- and her recording career took off with it. The distribution of her releases also received a boost when Blue Note acquired Premonition in the early 2000s. Barber refuses to be pigeon-holed. She writes much of her output, she has phrasing and timing to compete with the best, and she moves between genres with ease, sometimes settling on post bop, other times avant-garde and often mixing in cabaret. With this release, Barber recorded a set of twelve standards. However, to risk a cliché, she makes each song her own. Like all Barber’s recordings, she is backed by a topflight band, in various combinations: Charlie Hunter on guitar, Marc Johnson or Michael Arnopol on bass, Adam Cruz or Adam Nussbaum on drums. The standards are tunes known to everyone, like “Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Yesterdays,” “All or Nothing at All” and “So In Love.” Barber does not try and sound like any predecessors historically linked to these standards. Her low, sultry voice and unique timing immediately distinguish her; but what really sets her apart is her piano playing, which is given plenty of range here. This is the second Patricia Barber entry in the deluxe box-set category. Impex licensed the one-step process (which Impex calls 1 Step), familiar from Mobile Fidelity, and have used it to produce a 45rpm two-disc set pressed with Neotech VR900-Supreme vinyl, which is said to reduce groove noise. The Neotech process involves, among other things, the use of more expensive raw materials, and the discs are pressed at RTI using fewer steps, keeping the LPs closer to the source material. The set is limited to 7500 numbered copies.
The LPs are packaged in a tri-fold cover, with the discs in the two outer sections and a brochure in the middle. The glossy record jacket then fits into a handsome slipcase with a leatherette finish. The slipcase takes up about a half to a third the space of the more capacious boxes provided by Mobile Fidelity and Acoustic Sounds. I prefer the slim presentation here, but others may like more swag. The only nit I have to pick with the packaging is that the band members are not identified on the record jacket or brochure, and individual band members play on some but not all cuts. I would have given up some of the photographs in the brochure for details on the musicians. Jim Anderson recorded Nightclub in May of 2000 at The Chicago Recording Company, using its stairwell as a reverb chamber. It was recorded with a Sony PCM 3348 digital recorder onto half-inch tape. Anderson used a Neve analog mixer to create digital and analog stereo masters. Bernie Grundman mastered and cut this edition from the analog stereo master without conversion to DSD. The album was first released by Premonition and Blue Note on CD in 2000, and the same year both Mobile Fidelity and Premonition released LP versions. In 2013, Premonition reissued Nightclub on two LPs. It is an audiophile-worthy recording in any format or version. I remember listening to the 2013 reissue [Premonition 90763-1] when it was released and feeling that it could not sound any better. I was wrong. This 1 Step version is spooky good, and significantly improves on all the versions that came before it. The voice and each instrument occupies its own space with pinpoint stability and accuracy. Barber’s voice and piano are prominent, but not out of proportion. The background is dead quiet, perhaps a testament to the Neotech vinyl but also the benefits of the pressing process. The recording venue and style are different from the
traditional choice for jazz recordings. Compare Nightclub to the 2002 James
Farmer analog recording of Scolohofo's (Scofield, Lovano, Holland, Foster) Oh! recorded
at Sear Sound in New York City, newly released in the Tone Poet series, for an interesting
juxtaposition. Both are outstanding recordings. But where the Sear Sound recording fills
in every inch of the recording space, the Chicago recording makes you feel like you can
rise from your listening chair, walk among the players, and observe every movement, every
inflection. Forget about whether this sounds like what you would hear in a club or other
venue. While the energy and excitement of hearing music live can never be reproduced at
home, the sound of the 1 Step records played on a good system may be better than what you
can hear live. This is a demonstration-quality LP you can pull out for your audiophile and
music-loving friends alike. |
lthough female vocalist is often a derogatory
term among audiophiles, those naysayers seem to forget that Billie Holiday, Ella
Fitzgerald, and many other great vocalists were, in fact, female. Sure, there are female
singers of a lesser cut that aim their work primarily at the audiophile trade and make
little dent outside that sphere. But the knock there is on us, because we buy what they
produce, no matter its musical appeal.
