Madeleine Peyroux
Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 7:30 pm
Madeleine Peyroux’s musical journey is truly compelling, and reflects her independent spirit. Known for her dusky, lyrical style, and affinity for reinterpreting classic Jazz, Blues, and Folk standards, Madeleine Peyroux is an artist who gazes fearlessly into the depths of a song and reflects back a searing emotional truth.
Emerging in her teens as a street-busking performer in Paris’ Latin Quarter in the 1980s, Madeleine Peyroux drew favorable comparisons to legendary Jazz singer Billie Holiday, and eventually caught the attention of the record industry. Her debut album, 1996’s Dreamland, featured a noted Jazz artists and drew accolades for her distinctive take on Blues and Jazz standards. Overwhelmed by her initial success, the singer took time off before returning with her diverse sophomore album, 2004’s Larry Klein-produced Careless Love. Since then, she has continued to cut a low-key, if no less lauded career path, releasing a handful of highly regarded albums.
Eight albums and 22 years since her debut Dreamland, Madeleine Peyroux continues to challenge the confines of Jazz, venturing into contemporary music with unfading curiosity.
Madeleine Peyroux’s new album, Anthem, finds the singer-songwriter collaborating with writers/musicians Patrick Warren (Bonnie Raitt, JD Souther, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Lana Del Rey, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers), Brian MacLeod (Sara Bareilles, Leonard Cohen, Tina Turner, Ziggy Marley) and David Baerwald (Joni Mitchell, David and David, Sheryl Crow), who are also the basic rhythm section players on the album. Together, they cast a sober, poetic, and at times philosophical eye on the current state of the world. Anthem weaves the colorful stories of people confronting life’s challenges in a multitude of ways.
Anthem is Peyroux’s “biggest project to date,” with the artist investing many months of hands-on involvement in the studio, “exploring processed sounds and editing in post tracking.”
Notably, it was written with the group of musicians/writers who also played on it, “this album was about discovering the original songs as they were being recorded” and mastering the courage to “let the songs choose their own path.”
The new album includes several songs bearing Peyroux’s distinctive style including “On My Own” and “Sunday Afternoon,” but Anthem’s spirit was that of exploring new styles while safe in the knowledge that “if you are loyal to yourself, there should always be a thread running through your music.”
“Anthem stands as Peyroux’s greatest work to date."
-Glide Magazine August 2018 9 out of 10 stars
“A triumphant mix of the personal and the political.”
-The Sunday Times (UK) 26 August 2018
“ANTHEM is an exhilarating trip – bold, intense, deeply insightful”
-Jazz Times September 2018
“These are, by and large, everyman anthems, survivalist jazz for tough times. Drugs, booze, and a miscellany of hardships and crutches loom large in such selections as ‘Party Tyme’, ‘Down on Me’, ‘On a Sunday Afternoon’ and the cautiously hopeful ‘The Ghosts of Tomorrow’.”
-Jazz Times September 2018
“There’s more than an echo of Steely Dan in the combination of smooth jazz and raw lyricism. In fact, Brand New Deal’s elegant swipe at American capitalism could easily have come straight off the Dan’s Gaucho LP but it’s Peyroux’s insouciant voice that haunts the listener.”
-Sunday Express (UK) 28 August 2018
"The most ambitious project by Madeleine Peyroux to date."
-Jazzethik Germany 28 August 2018
“Sensual vocals hit the spot”
-The Arts Desk UK 27 August 2018
“It’s Peyroux’s insouciant voice that haunts the listener”
-Sunday Express UK 26 August 2018
“Inspired by one of the greats, Peyroux is Cohen her own way”
-Metro UK 30 August 2018
“Peyroux has developed her vocal style and into the third decade of her career, she is her own artist; to borrow a Cohen line, this is Peryoux’s own ‘manual for living with defeat’.”
-Metro UK 30 August 2018
“On Sunday night she invited us into her world, studding the lyrics with playful asides and half-whispered confessions to lend each song an air of intimacy. Her rapport with her band felt as natural as her wondrously elastic phrasing, and her music exuded a languid warmth that was balm for the ears.”
-Performance at Hamer Hall Melbourne International Jazz Festival – The Sydney Morning Herald by Jessica Nicholas June 2018