Shows at 8 & 10pm

 When the veteran music writer Don Heckman (Los Angeles Times) called Patricia Barber “one of the most utterly individual jazz performers to arrive on the scene in years,” he wasn’t referring to the vir­tuosic spectacle that comes all too easily to today’s jazz artists. Rather, Heckman had honed in on the quiet audacity with which Barber has redefined the role of the singer–songwriter for  21st–century jazz. There are few among her contemporaries who have managed to create a comparable chemistry of new and old standards; and fewer still that can match the compound appeal of Barber’s rarefied vocals and pristine piano. In his AllMusic review of her most recent CD Smash (Concord Music, 2013), Thom Jurek hailed Patricia Barber “among the most original lyricists/song–poets to come down the pipe in 40 years. Her use of metaphor and metonymy is woven inextricably into her trademark melodies, which cre­ate mental and sonic images that evoke insight and emotion.”