Patricia Barber performs classic songs by Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder, Rodgers & Hammerstein and more on her highly anticipated second standards album, Clique.
The upcoming release is the long-awaited successor to Nightclub, the pianist and singer’s critically acclaimed and fan-favourite first album of all standards from more than 20 years ago. Clique features tunes that Barber has frequently performed as encores throughout her illustrious career.
“The harmonic language of jazz, as well as that of the Great American Songbook, is certainly rich — look how much has come out of it — but it’s circumscribed,” says Barber. “I started wanting to hear something else.”
After growing an international following, earning the first-ever Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to a non-classical songwriter, and becoming an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Barber returns with a journey through music history as she “respects traditions, bends them to make her own points, and freshens them into something new,” according to the album’s liner notes by NPR’s Susan Stamberg.
On Clique, Barber is backed by longtime rhythm section of bassist Patrick Mulcahy and drummer Jon Deitemyer. She’s also joined by guitarist Neal Alger and saxophonist Jim Gailloretto.
The album is a product of the same recording sessions as her 2019 album Higher, produced once again with multiple Grammy-winning producer Jim Anderson. The tracks were recorded, mixed and mastered in Digital eXtreme Definition.
Here’s the track listing for Clique:
- This Town (Lee Hazlewood)
- Trouble is a Man (Alec Wilder)
- Mashup (Patricia Barber)
- One Note Samba (Antônio Carlos Jobim / Newton Mendonça)
- I Could Have Danced All Night (Lerner & Loewe)
- The In Crowd (Billy Page)
- Shall We Dance? (Rodgers & Hammerstein)
- Straight No Chaser (Thelonious Monk)
- All In Love Is Fair (Stevie Wonder)
Clique arrives Aug. 6 via Impex.