R2R Tapes are made to order. Please contact us for delivery date.

The dazzling sound and enigmatic performances of Patricia Barber’s latest jazz spellbinder Higher is the first of Impex’s latest high-end audio offering: Reel-to-reel tapes! They’ve given the “Impex Treatment” into very small runs of 15 IPS, 1/4” tapes as our LPs and digital products, making Impex REELS a step-above. Renowned mastering engineer Scott Hull at Masterdisk will record Jim Anderson’s original 32 bit/352.8 kHz DXD masters directly to tape with no additional processing. What you hear on Impex REELS is exactly what Anderson and Barber intended.

Impex REELS are made to order, one at a time, transferred and assembled by hand. Each package includes two 15 IPS 1/4” tapes in individual boxes, complete large-format booklets from the LP versions, a deluxe tip-on printed case for each reel in the set, and a certificate of authenticity from Scott Hull.

Pushing Boundaries

“Throughout my career as a singer, pianist, and songwriter, I’ve been pushing the boundaries of songwriting. I’ve recently been drawn to writing songs that combine lyrical poetry with a rich harmonic language, pulling from classical music as well as the circumscribed system of harmony in jazz and classic American song. Shulamit Ran, composer, friend, and mentor, has been instrumental in teaching me how to access a limitless harmonic vista. This album features “Angels, Birds, and I…,” a new song cycle that portrays this musical adventure, pushing the frontiers of my songwriting all the way into art song. I’m happy to say that classical singers as well as jazz singers are performing these songs.

In 2015 I had the honor of performing “Angels, Birds, and I…” along with other songs of mine at Chicago’s Harris Theater with the incomparable Renée Fleming. Together we also toured my songs in concerts in NY and Washington D.C., and in 2016 Renée sang them at a Carnegie Hall recital. Her performance of “Higher,” a song I wrote for my mother, at the sold-out 4,152-seat Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Champaign-Urbana, was a gift she gave me I will never forget.

In 2016 Augusta Read Thomas and the Ear Taxi New Music Festival asked me to open the festival with these songs. I was honored by the request. The songs are at once “contemporary” and indebted to traditional jazz and classical harmony—art songs that are unique to my synthesis of sonorities and forms and offer a new landscape for singers and instrumentalists.

In addition to “Angels, Birds, and I…,” this album will include some instrumentals and covers, just for fun. We also hope to find an operatic soprano to sing one of the art songs, for my listening pleasure! and yours, of course.

Please join me as I share with you this very personal journey.”

– Patricia Barber

Please note: Mp3 preview excerpts are available for Tracks 1, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11 only.

Patricia Barber – Vocals
Neal Alger – Acoustic Guitar
Jim Gailloreto – Tenor Saxophone
Patrick Mulcahy – Bass
Jon Deitemyer – Drums