MADELEINE PEYROUX
Jazz vocalist extends her style and themes.
By Nigel Williamson
Let’s Walk THIRTY TIGERS
8/10
Blooming ambitions: Peyroux
EBRUYILDIZ
ONE of the more fascinating developments in popular music during the years of Uncut’s existence is the way that jazz has come in from the cold to regain a central place in the culture that it perhaps last held when Miles Davis was still alive.
Back in 2004, when Madeleine Peyroux released her career-defining, half-amillion-sellingsecondalbumCareless Love, it was barely acknowledged in the rock music press. Along with the likes of Jamie Cullum and Diana Krall, it was the sort of record that Michael Parkinson played on his Radio 2 show and there most of us were happy to leave it.
Over the next two decades, though, Peyroux quietly went about winning many more of us over by making a series of stunning records that have combined seductively smoky vocals with classy arrangements laced with a troubadour spirit and a heartful of soul.
Like many jazz vocalists, her repertoire over the years has often been heavy on standards and covers. Peerless interpretations of compositions by Dylan, Cohen, Tom Waits, Randy Newman and Warren Zevon have nestled alongside songs made famous by Edith Piaf, Eartha Kitt and Bessie Smith. But she’s also become an increasingly assured songwriter, sometimes working with Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, and now for the first time on this, her ninth album, co-writing every song with longtime collaborator Jon Herington (himself a Steely Dan alumnus).
It’s a long way from her origins as a teenager in the early 1990s, busking on the streets of Paris and singing Billie Holiday numbers. After returning to her native America, Peyroux’s debut album appeared in 1996, but a cyst on her vocal cords required surgery and stalled her career. Dropped by her label, she spent eight years in the wilderness before she was picked up by Rounder Records, who teamed her with Joni Mitchell’s producer/ex-husband Larry Klein, and who went on to helm five fine albums for her, including 2018’s Anthem.