Patricia Barber - Verse

This is cerebral jazz—think Diana Krall for eggheads. Chicago’s Patricia Barber loves inventive wordplay and unusual time signatures. “Lost in This Love” poses profundities over a syncopated guitar, while “Clues” clue rhymes off stark, snappy evidence like a gumshoe in a potboiler. In other songs, Barber shows off her interests. “If I Were Blue” references painters Goya and Picasso, while “I Could Eat Your Words” lists Aristotle and Descartes. But the singer-pianist is at her best on the sexy, bass-driven “Regular Pleasures.”