Patricia Barber - Verse (2002)

Patricia Barber has made enough breakout albums to be brought up on charges. Her career, not to mention her music, has been like a giant rainbow arcing eternally upward with bursts of bright giddy colors and dark moody tones. But like her last album, Nightclub, and before that Companion and Modern Cool, this is the one that will bring her a bigger audience. The difference here is that this is the singer-pianist's first album of all original songs. With Dave Douglas dancing his trumpet around her witty and literate tales, these 10 scholarly vignettes are reminiscent of the way the great Cole Porter educated his listeners while thoroughly twisting the English language in an irresistibly entertaining way. "I Could Eat Your Words" is about philosophy, cooking, and falling in love with your college professor. In it she somehow can "suck the salt from erudition, drink remorse like a cabernet, sweeten with equivocation" and still swing. Many singers would still be stuck on "erudition" while Barber--all sly, darkly slick, and witty--continues to compose from a high artistic perch. Mentioning David Hockney, Edward Hopper, and Goya in the text of "If I Were Blue," and Baudelaire in "You've Gotta Go Home," ain't no easy trick. --Mark Ruffin