PB at GM...

OK. There is something seriously wrong with me. Fr. C and I went to Chicago on August 27th - an anniversary celebration - and we saw Patricia Barber at the Green Mill and I haven't blogged about it yet. A serious illness must be involved.

Life is busy...and yet not, sometimes. Maybe it's just the adjustment period in our new lives. The air is different. I don't think it has anything to do with exhausting activities like...It's midnight and I'm cleaning up some impressive Bixby projectile vomit in the living room...he was on the harvest table right by the stairs and, though there was a liquid heap on the tablecloth on said table, still, much of it left a lace-like effect splattered on a large area of the carpet...even reached the stairs...AND the railing...as well as embedding itself in the screws holding the stair railing in place...and, well, I can't even adequately describe the impressive scope of it. I'm not usually a big fan of carpet. But the rectory carpet is understated, lovely - low pile, cottony... And I want to be a good steward of it. So...I cleaned up the complicated slurpy canned cat food vomit crime scene with Nature's Miracle and SEVERAL rags; rolled up half of the organdy cloth on the harvest table to contain that portion for later (morning) cleanup. Climbed in bed. Hear a loud thud. Lucy has pulled the tablecloth onto the carpet, displacing several heavy items on the table (i.e., landed on the carpet) and actually rather quickly chewed through a corner of the valued, delicate cloth in her quick attempt to do her own thorough clean up. Yup, I'm sure. My lapse in blogging, decline in creative energy, has nothing to do with that.

BTW: Why I still like Clive Davis. His review of PB's latest CD - Mythologies (the result of her Guggenheim fellowship) : "Audacious is the only word for the Chicago-based singer-pianist's latest leap into the unknown. She's always pursued an unconventional course, and this, inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, no less, is one of the most unusual and memorable records to come my way in a long, long time. Oh, and this is a nice one from Time Out, NY: Patricia Barber is a demon of an improvising pianist, especially live. (YES!!) But the literary, even cerebral cast of her original material has evident highbrow appeal, especially as sung in her distinctively icy alto; Laurie Anderson with a nightclub gig... (Oops, I think I just threw Blogger into font confusion)

Green Mill is her stomping ground. I don't think she plays three sets just any place. She wears it like a comfortable, over-worn jean skirt. Relaxed, at home. Now, she is off working/playing on her UC Berkeley fellowship, then a couple nights at the Getty villa in Malibu. But when she's back in town, it will be Monday nights at the Green Mill as usual.

She looked like herself -- I was surprised at how well I 'know' her, how much I've seen on her website and on CD sleeves is real, really her. Wearing black. Her hair loosely clipped back. Signature facial expressions and gyrations at the piano. She even had her signature cognac-filled glass by the piano.

It just might be true that the other members of the quartet match her brilliance. But I'm not going to say that. It is The Patricia Barber quartet, and she reigns as queen. The first set included three, lengthy, impressive, on-the-spot improvisations from the group. Danson la Gigue was her only composition (setting a Verlaine poem) from a CD. There were a few cool, blue 'cover' ballads. I would have killed to hear 'If I Were Blue' and a few others of her original lyrics/music creations, but there was no opportunity. After announcing the first break -- with an astonishing promise of two more sets to come -- we waited and waited and waited and it was obvious the group was enjoying the night at 'home' so very much that, when it got to be midnight on Indiana EDT, we bailed and hit the road. Must stay the night next time!!!

Notes on the evening's offerings are buried deep in my purse. When excavated, there may be more to share.

(Oh -- and all this for a cover of $7 at the door, the price of a movie in Warsaw, and likely half a movie in Chicago. I don't sense this is because she hasn't forgotten her roots, but that she still is her roots. Nature Conservancy is her 'cause'.)

NPR's Jim Fusseli reviews her CD 'Verse' (2002) on All Things Considered.

Definitely click on 'Launch the Mythologies player' at the top of her news page.