In 2003, acclaimed singer-pianist Patricia Barber became one of the few jazz musicians ever to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and she took the opportunity to create one of the most ambitious and affecting works of her career. Embarking on a bold, exciting musical adventure, Barber brings her compositional sophistication to new heights with Mythologies, a song cycle based on Greek mythology where each of the 11 mythological characters in Ovid’s Metamorphoses is fleshed out in music.

TRACK LISTING
1 The Moon
2 Morpheus
3 Pygmalion
4 Hunger
5 Icarus (for Nina Simone)
6 Orpheus/ Sonnet
7 Persephone
8 Narcissus
9 Whiteworld/ Oedipus
10 Phaethon
11 The Hours

Patricia Barber - piano & vocals
Neal Alger - Guitar
Michael Arnapol - Bass
Eric Montzka - Drums

With special guests: Jim Gailloreto saxophone (tracks 1, 2, 10); Choral Thunder, directed by Shelby Webb, Jr. background vocals (tracks 10, 11)

With additional vocals by: Paul Falk (track 7), Grazyna Auguscik (track 11), Lawrice Flowers (tracks 7, 10), Airreal Watkins (track 10), Walter “Mitchell” Owens, III (track 10)

All words & music by Patricia Barber
Produced by Patricia Barber

(Blue Note Records - 2006)