Patricia Barber

It is so hard for this early riser to make it to the Green Mill on a Monday night to hear Patricia Barber and her quartet, but it is always so worth it. Some neighbors are also fans, and we had wanted to go together for the longest time and never had. This week we finally did. And we managed to get some other friends to join us as well.

We had to stop again at Julius Meinl on the way for a necessary caffeine fix.

There are so many things to like about the Green Mill. It looks and feels like it hasn’t changed since the 40’s. The people who go there go to listen to the music. The music is not ear-bleedingly loud. The indoor smoking ban means you no longer have to endure the smoke during the show, nor do you reek like an ashtray afterwards. And the setting allows for some serendipitous musical moments, like the pianist comping the police car siren as it zips by, or when the cash register bell is in tune with the song.

What else can be said about Barber and her group? The set is a tasteful mix of up-tempo and ballad, of unlimited joy and poignant melancholy, of the familiar and the bizarre. The musicianship is unparalleled. Each song is a master class of selfless virtuosity, listening and responding, construction and demolition. There was a version of “All The Things You Are” as insanely energetic as any I’ve heard, and a mellowed version of Smokey Robinson’s “Being With You” as only Barber could do it. Damn, we Chicagoans are lucky.