Patricia Barber - Higher (2019/2020) [Official Digital Download - DXD 24/352 plus]

Impex Records is excited to announce their premier collaboration with one of our generation's most influential jazz artists, Patricia Barber. Her elegant album "Higher", recorded and mixed by long-time collaborator Jim Anderson, contains eight songs that explore the mysteries that bind us, causing Jazz times to declare: "Few performers in or out of jazz are as consistently brilliant as Patricia Barber…Brainy. Beautiful".

Higher is the new studio album by composer, singer and pianist Patricia Barber. Inspired by classical works and the challenge of making jazz music more expansive, the latest project came to life. And again Barber knows how to create a more artistic side of modern jazz, without denying the traditional roots of American jazz music.

It has been six years since Patricia Barber's latest studio album was released. Smash continued on the path Barber took with Mythologies (2006), by weaving influences of classical music with literature or poetry into an eclectic jazzy work with depth. Barber once promised herself to delve into classical works when she reached the age of 50 and did so. In recent years, the expressionist-minded artist has increasingly immersed herself in the many forms of classical music and, thanks to a friend's remark, felt challenged to prove that jazz, like classical music, could contain short songs. Just like works by Schumann or Schubert. The challenge that Patricia Barber had set for herself was a big one. Not because it proves the above view, but simply because Barber is rather purist, and perfectionism suits her whole being. That resulted in years of composing, testing and looking for inspiration to give shape to her project. It was probably the acquired knowledge of her work together with Kenny Werner in combination with her collaborations with the celebrated opera singer Renée Fleming and her own investigations that led to the song cycle that plays the leading role on Higher. The harmonic evolution, as Barber calls the path chosen, is a song cycle of these tracks, which are "just for pure fun" supplemented with three variations on tunes from the Great American Songbook. The cycle is described contextually by a single protagonist, who, speaking from the role of the artist, empathizes with the inability to deliver works of the highest quality on stage ("Muse") or receives the means for doing so ("Voyager"), aspires to a future in opera ("The Opera Song") or ponders the pure love of music ("Surrender").

Tracklist:

01 - Muse
02 - Surrender
03 - Pallid Angel
04 - Opera Song
05 - High Summer Season
06 - Albatros Song
07 - Voyager
08 - Higher
09 - Early Autumn
10 - in Your Own Sweet Way
11 - Secret Love
12 - Opera Song (with Katherine Werbiansky)

Produced by Patricia Barber. Engineered by Jim Anderson.
Recorded in January 2019 at Chicago Recording Company, Studio 5, Chicago, IL.
Mixed in March 2019 at Skywalker Sound, a Lucasfilm, Limited, Marin County, CA.
Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering, Portland, Maine.
Recorded, Mixed & Mastered in High Resolution DXD (32-bit/352,8 kHz) using a Horus/Pyramix recording system.

Musicians:
Patricia Barber - piano, vocals
Jim Gailloreto - tenor saxophone
Neal Alger - acoustic guitar
Patrick Mulcahy - bass
Jon Deitemyer - drums
Katherine Werbiansky - lyric soprano on "12"


Thanks to the Original customer!