Half The Perfect World

Performer: Madeleine Peyroux
Producer: Larry Klein
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Though dismissed by some critics as a Billie Holiday imitator, Madeleine Peyroux has her own distinctive approach to singing. The Lady Day comparisons are apt, and Peyroux's take on breezy, melancholic jazz and blues pushes a vintage button, but her albums are dressed up in enough contemporary style to make them fresh. HALF THE PERFECT WORLD (2006), for instance, is a deeply pleasurable listen from back to front. Whether she's bringing her elegant, intimate touch to familiar contemporary favorites like Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'" and Tom Waits's "The Heart of Saturday Night," or offering up her fine originals, Peyroux turns in a batch of gorgeous, studied performances on HALF. The result is a quiet, haunting gem of an album.

Rolling Stone (p.88) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[S]teeped in jazz and classic pop; much of it is polite and pretty..." Entertainment Weekly (p.94) - "WORLD is like stumbling into a jazz cafe at closing time, when the performers are lingering on stage, not ready to leave the music." -- Grade: A- Q (p.147) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[H]er take on Joni Mitchell's 'River', featuring harmonies from the like-minded kd lang, is the melancholy highlight. It's perfect rainy day music." Down Beat (p.76) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "In keeping with Peyroux's unassuming vocal approach most of the songs make an almost surreptitious entry..." No Depression (p.121) - "On 'A Little Bit', Peyroux's voice skirts flirtatiously around the melody, while the string quartet on 'Once In A While' puts an artful shimmer on soft blues." Mojo (Publisher) (p.104) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he warm sound puts every note in the room with you....Intimate and unforced..."

Madeleine Peyroux is helping to keep classic jazz vocals alive in the new millennium, and while her voice and delivery owe a supreme debt to the legendary Billie Holiday, Peyroux puts her own hip spin on Lady Day's musical tradition. As much an American version of Edith Piaf as a straight jazz singer, Peyroux interprets sorrowful songs by a host of artists across all genres, undauntedly tackling everything from "Careless Love" and "Lovesick Blues" to Leonard Cohen and Elliott Smith. She released her fourth full-length, HALF THE PERFECT WORLD, in 2006.

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