Patricia Barber

I don't listen to Jazz that often. There has been, I feel, an overload of Jazz for its listeners. Various schools have developed, but the variation seems to be that of style rather than musical qualities. Being a passive listener I could never really tell what is really happening in the scene.

No other genre provides so much freedom to the performer - both in terms of tonality and rhythm. But I guess some artists have taken advantage of the more than average politeness of the listeners. Bump notes, whacky rhythms may not work anywhere else, but in Jazz they're supposed to mean something. I don't buy that. I find out-of-tune activities to be primarily unjustifiable.

Patricia Barber is an exception, by far one of the greatest one. The song - Regular Pleasures, where I remember finding her voice first, has this strange overpowering heavy-bass rhythm. Her hushy-voice with rather simple lyrics emits a signature quality of her music. That is what Jazz does best.