Concert review: Jill Barber
Guest blogger Lisa Kehler reviews last night’s show by Jill Barber at the Dalhousie Arts Centre.
Jill Barber
Return of the diva
By Stephen Patrick Clare | Jun 2, 2011Jill Barber returns to the East Coast to headline at the Halifax Jazz Festival.
Even in French, Jill Barber’s voice is unmistakable.
“J’espere qu’ils m’ont compris,” shares the sultry chanteuse over the phone from Quebec where she and her band are touring in support of her fourth studio album, Mischievous Moon.
It means: I hope they understand me. “I do about half of my talking on-stage in French these days,” she explains. “I really hope that they understand me.”
She’s been trying hard to master the language. “As a Canadian, I was ashamed not to speak both official languages,” she explains. “And I love the way that French rolls off the tongue. It is romantic and sensual and it is a pleasure to sing.”
Judging by the response, Barber’s recent linguistic lessons appear to have hit home with audiences across Québec. “They have taken me in as one of their own,” she says.
And Haligonians will rediscover Barber on July 11, when she headlines at the Halifax Jazz Festival, playing the main-stage tent on the waterfront. Originally from Ontario, Barber now lives in British Columbia but called Halifax home for many years.
In intimate shows around Halifax from 2002 to 2008, local music lovers saw her evolve from a rootsy/folksy charmer to a sultry jazz diva. She’s hit her stride with “Dis Moi/Tell Me” the first single from Mischievous Moon. “We released both a French and English version of the same song as a sort of homage to les deux solitudes,” she says.
She cites a litany of inspiration: “old Hollywood, The Muppet Show, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, French street performers, Palm Springs, Burt Bacharach, Catherine Deneuve, Edith Piaf, cocktail hour poolside, ’60s hairdos, Cuban hand drumming, jazz flute, whisky sours, the mountains, the moon….”
The album’s title, she says, is “a gentle nod to the way the moon, the stars and all the fates seem to enjoy playing tricks on us mere mortals down below.”
Critics across the country are giving Mischievous Moon more than a mere nod however, with nxew.com calling the effort “sexy, but with a touch of naïveté….sultry, but whimsical.” Music magazine Exclaim says the work is “steeped in elegance and beauty… Barber turns up the heat and the heart.”
The heat will go up a couple more notches when Barber takes the stage at the Halifax Jazz Festival. “I am very excited,” she says. “I have performed at almost every venue and festival in and around Atlantic Canada but I have never played the Jazz Fest. Then again, before this album, I hadn’t really given them a reason to invite me.”
She expects the evening to be bittersweet. “Halifax will forever feel like home to me,” she says. “It is the place where I found my voice and it is where I came of age both as a woman and as a musician.”
Much of that maturation, she believes, came from being at the centre of a creative community. “Halifax, and all of Atlantic Canada really, is an incubator of inspiration and influence—like one big artists’ colony,” she says. “The collaborative spirit is strong, and musicians there are incredibly supportive and encouraging of one another’s work. I think that’s a big reason why we are now seeing so much talent come from that part of the country.”
By way of example, she lists Rose Cousins, David Myles, Meaghan Smith, Sloan, Tanya Davis and Buck 65. “I hate to leave anyone out, but I really could go on and on,” she says. “The list is endless.”
She adds that the strong storytelling tradition along the East Coast has influenced her and many other artists. “You will hear and see and read things in Atlantic Canada that you won’t experience anywhere else in the country,” she says. “People there are quite close to their sense of history and heritage and they have kept it alive largely through their music and literature.”
Barber left her mark on musical history here—including two East Coast Music Awards in 2007 (Best Album and Female Artist of the Year)—before following her heart across the country two years ago, where she married CBC Radio 3 personality Grant Lawrence. “I felt that it was the right time for me to go,” she says. “Vancouver is a young city and it has a real cool, cutting-edge vibe to it. I’m happy there and it has been good for my work.”
Music insiders agree. “I think it was a move that Jill had to make,” says Stuart McLean of The Vinyl Café on CBC Radio. Barber toured with the stage version of his show in 2007 and 2009. “An artist of her stature and potential needs to keep challenging herself to grow,” he adds. “Sometimes a change of scenery will do just that.”
Music journalist and author Bob Mersereau of Fredericton believes that Mischievous Moon indicates Barber’s best is yet to come. “She has really found her stride,” he says. “If this new record is any indication of what she is capable of both as a singer and as a songwriter, then the sky is the limit for her in the years ahead.”
Lush with the swirl of strings and the bold of brass, the album’s 11 arrangements are jazz-infused pop melodies. “It was an ambitious, and expensive, undertaking,” she says. “There were equal parts of inspiration, perspiration and desperation—and an excessive amount of whisky drinking I might add.”
Still, Mischievous Moon was the album that she says she had to make. “I am more than satisfied with the way it turned out,” she says, ”as the French might say, je suis bien content.”
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HALIFAX JAZZ FESTIVAL
The Halifax Jazz Festival returns from July 8 to 16, marking its 25th anniversary with new digs; the main Festival Tent moves from Spring Garden Road to the foot of Salter Street on the waterfront. From the main stage to intimate club shows, JazzFest showcases dozens of artists, from local favourites to international talents. halifaxjazzfestival.ca
[...] Now living in British Columbia, she began her career here. “I am very excited,” she said in a recent interview with Halifax Magazine. “I have performed at almost every venue and festival in and around Atlantic Canada but I have [...]