Whats Up?

Patricia Barber Quartet Returns to the Dakota, September 17

"Each generation has had its potent songwriters, the composers of music and lyrics that address universal themes – love, loss and social commentary. We’ve moved from George Gershwin and Cole Porter to Rodgers and Hart, from Lennon and McCartney to Joni Mitchell to Nick Drake, and to the jazz genre’s current crop of composer/performers like Esperanza Spalding, Gretchen Parlato, Gregory Porter and Kurt Elling. Yet, be it love, loss or satire, no one among active jazz performers melds notes and words with the powerful fragility, the delicate incision, the brazen honesty of Patricia Barber.

Patricia Hosts WDCB's "MusicHead" Three-Part Series

Patricia Barber hosted WDCB’s new three-part series  “MusicHeads,” recorded in the acoustically pristine PianoForte Studios in downtown Chicago. In the first show, which aired January 14, 2015, Barber explores the question “What is Swing? She and her band members deconstruct and demonstrate how musicians actually make music swing.  Helping Patricia swing on this show are bassist Larry Kohut, drummer, Jon Deitemyer and saxophonist Jim Gailloreto.

The Telegraph Review of Patricia's Performance from the Montreal Jazz Festival

"Her command as performer has clearly prospered and grown. Her regular Monday night gig is a small club in Chicago, the Green Mill lounge, seven miles North of the city centre, and these days there is no doubt of her powerful ability to communicate from a wide stage right into the back row of a 1.400-seat theatre. She held the audience transfixed for an hour and a half. She is in her late fifties. Tall, lean and determined, she comes across as younger, full of energy and defiance and imbued with sheer class."

Pages