The final link in his education was the classical composer Ludmila Ulehla, with whom Stillman studied at the New School. From her he learned a kind of "stream-of-consciousness" method for treating composition like improvisation: "get the pencil to the paper and just write and don't think about bar lines." From a rough draft, the composer figures out what will be in time or out of time, what kind of meter.
Perhaps all these things account for group improvisations on Like a Magic Kiss that flow as easily as Stillman's saxophone lines, and for the tantalizing harmonic ambiguity that teases and defers resolution. "I like the freedom in music, but I also like to have the freedom within the form. Like you're reconstructing a house from the inside — you're pushing the walls around and making the bathroom bigger and the kitchen smaller, but you're still dealing with the space inside the house."
Patricia Barber hadn't played Boston in so long, it hardly mattered that after walking out to the piano for the first set February 11 at the Regattabar with a box of Kleenex in her hand, she announced, "I've got one of those spring colds." She added, "If you want a refund, talk directly to me, because I'm rich and famous."
So, yes, the band stretched out a bit. That meant two extended features for drummer Eric Montzka and plenty of solos all around. Which wasn't a bad thing, especially given Barber's terrific piano playing. This was true whether she was soloing over her vamping arrangement of Jobim's "Triste," holding back on the beat, rushing ahead, phrasing conversationally, or comping in her beautiful, spare way behind bassist Michael Arnopol on that tune (which she sang in Portuguese). This wasn't the typical rhythmic chording accompaniment but rather a running commentary, quiet, short melodic asides or figures that overlapped in dialogue with Arnopol.
And then there was the singing. Cold or no, her dark low-register delivery was intact. Barber is, above all, a literate songwriter, and she wants you to hear every word, the hiss and click of sibilant and consonant. That articulation — and her timing — made Cole Porter lyrics like "On your mark/Get set/Get out of town" just about perfect, especially as Neal Alger's guitar nyah-nyah'd quietly in the background. Another tune from her latest album, The Cole Porter Mix (Blue Note), she introduced as "something Cole Porter and I wrote together," so we heard about "the cop/In the Kevlar armor." And then there was her own eerie "Snow": "Do you think of me like snow/Cool, slippery, and white?/Do you think of me like jazz/As hip, as black as night?" The band had just come down from one of the big drum rave-ups with Montzka, and that made the hush of "Snow" all the more dramatic. Yes, she could have sung a bit more in that set. But no one was complaining.
BAD TOUCH | Regattabar, Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett St, Cambridge | March 3 @ 7:30 pm | $12 | 617.395.7757 orwww.regattabarjazz.com
