Patricia Barber
Live: A Fortnight In France

THE REVIEW

An American in Paris.

Close your eyes. The dimness of the place, inhabited by the whispers of people and the velvet of the curtains, feels like an embrace.
Close your eyes, don't think. The speaker announces the awaited entrance of Patricia, a light applause.
Close your eyes, don't think, free your mind. A glance at the piano, a soft light on the stage, sheets scattered, an interlocutory silence.
Close your eyes, don't think, free your mind, let yourself go. Patricia brushes the keys, the concert begins and a soft, sensual, light jazz music immediately fills the air like a leaf carried by the wind.
Close your eyes, don't think, free your mind, let yourself go, let your imagination capture you. "Did you ever think a piano could fall on your head?". No, I never would have thought so. The notes, like a blanket, begin to wrap around you, the guitar is a light embroidery of the void.
Close your eyes, don't think, let this sensual, charismatic, deep voice slowly carve inside you. And it's like being there, in Paris, in the dark, amid spirals of smoke and the aroma of cognac.

Patricia melancholically sings "Dansons la gigue". The words are by Paul Verlaine, a dive into poetry, the scent of France. Then the piano goes wild, the double bass accelerates and the words confuse me. The audience applauds and I with them. Chicago is thousands of miles away, Patricia takes off her shoes, she's at home. All she needs is a grand piano and an audience to fascinate and captivate, with songs that are sometimes ethereal and melancholic, sometimes intense and pungent, sometimes frenetic and pulsing, always nocturnal. She whispers, speaks, sings, lives. Suggestions? What does it matter. Perhaps it's enough for me to know that I cannot do without music like this—sensitive, caressing, languid, warm, enveloping, enchanting, capable of taking you elsewhere, imprisoning you in a sense of inner freedom, for which there is always an insatiable need.

And as I write, listen, and imagine, it rains outside, and the water is slowly carrying away the dry leaves of this autumn now behind us. But I have found in this music something capable of consoling me for this legitimate theft.

Close your eyes, don't think...