Patricia Barber

[AnotherJohnson]

At one of the launch events for Wilson’s new Sasha V speakers a listener brought up an event in Patricia Barber’s Companion album that surprised him. It has been beaten to death in some other threads… and I have to take the blame for that because I became a primary OCD listener, trying different speakers, electronics, cables, streaming services and the like. I was fascinated the way that the sonic character of this event was rendered under different streaming and playback circumstances.

With that said, I’d like to draw attention to the whole album. It is a live recording of an audience attended performance at a club. There were two sets, but only the first set seems to have been released (in September of 1999).

I like Melody Gardot because so much of her recorded work is of original compositions. This set by Patricia Barber is also of her own compositions. It includes a couple of very well known works, in particular Use Me, and Black Magic Woman.

I think this must have been an incredible live performance. The back up band rises to a high level at every position. I’m going to check, but I believe that Barber is both singer and pianist, like Diana Krall. Her vocal range is far beyond Krall’s.

Thanks to Joe Appierto for bringing her to my attention after noting the discussion on s PS Audio forum after the Sasha V launch took place.

[AnotherJohnson]

The rest of the credits:

With John McLean (guitar), Michael Arnopol (bass), Eric Montzka (drums, percussion), Ruben P. Alvarez (percussion); Jason Narducy (vocals) added on one track

[AnotherJohnson]

Her follow up album was Nightclub, ironically a studio album. It was released in September 2000. It is a collection of many jazz standards, including Autumn Leaves. Her voice quality is the same … good range, smooth, well executed interpretation, appropriate inflection. If you’re streaming anyway, might as well give this one a listen too.

[admin]

We've been having a heat wave and it's been a little hot in the upstairs main stereo room. I've been listening downstairs on the "budget stereo" and put some Patricia Barber on. She's got a great voice and you can sit and "chill" for for hours listening to her.

[AnotherJohnson]

I’ve been listening to more of her work. A recent album called “Clique” is surprisingly good. I expected it to show her vocal aging over two decades since “Companion” and “Nightclub”, but was pleased that she still has exceptionally good range and control.

[paulCJ]

Patricia Barber performed at Axpona this year (2025) and was a nice performance. The sound quality of her and her musicians performance was also quite good.

[AnotherJohnson]

I like Melody Gardot because so much of her recorded work is of original compositions. This set by Patricia Barber is also of her own compositions. It includes a couple of very well known works, in particular Use Me, and Black Magic Woman.

I was gushing about how creative Patricia Barber was/is to a friend who made his career in rock and jazz.

He said that the Roon data are wrong. She was not a collaborator on these compositions even though Roon credits her. I dug into it further and I believe he is correct.

For whatever reason, whether it’s improvisation or arrangement, she is credited … but he pointed out that that’s bogus too. It is not the convention to claim credit unless you’ve changed things substantially and renamed it. And then you could still find yourself in court to defend what you claim if it turns out to be a commercial success.

So … I still like Patricia Barber’s performance, and she is clearly creative. But she was not a collaborator on all the tunes that Roon credits her.

[admin]

I wonder if there is a way to inform Roon? I know they are pretty dedicated to making sure their meta information databases are as accurate as possible.

Regardless, none of this detracts from Patricia Barber's talent.

[AnotherJohnson]

Nevertheless their data are often seriously flawed. I run across miscredited work almost as often as uncredited.

As a quick example, a relative of mine has the same name as a famous guy, so he uses a different professional name. Although his performances are credited correctly, the score and lyrics are nearly always credited to the other guy.