Madeleine Peyroux Half the Perfect World on Numbered Limited-Edition 180g 33RPM 2LP Set from Mobile Fidelity: Audiophile Pressing Is Out of Print
Original PCM digital master to analog console to lathe
Madeleine Peyroux’s Half the Perfect World is the understated sound of carefree joy. It’s the equivalent to sitting outside a Parisian sidewalk café on a breezy summer day without a trouble in mind, and curling up and spending a day in bed with a loved one. Light, elegant, and a touch bluesy, the album is the long-overdue continuation of the gentle jazz-vocal style perfected by Billie Holiday in the 30s.
And does Peyroux ever have the voice and feel for it. Peyroux’s phrasing and timbre are different, but she’s good enough to warrant the comparison. And on this, her thrid solo album, the singer stakes her claim as the best interpreter of standards to come around since peak 70s era Linda Ronstadt.
“The jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux has a Mona Lisa voice and a personality to match. As she delicately swings the standard “Smile” on her new album, Half the Perfect World, you can read whatever emotions you want in her sly, enigmatic interpretation. She is either suppressing a secret smile or holding back tears. Or both. Riding on a 30s folk-jazz lilt, her timeless interpretation floats into the ether like a wisp of milkweed.” –Stephen Holden, New York Times, September 2006
Featuring a stellar band—drummer Scott Amendola, bassist David Piltch, pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz, and drummer Jay Bellerose are among the truly all-star lineup that provides the delicately spare instrumental frameworks—Half the Perfect World also showcases the Georgia-born vocalist’s knack for originals. In addition to covers of tunes by Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Mercer, Joni Mitchell (featuring a duet with fellow chanteuse k.d. lang), and Serge Gainsbourg (properly delivered entirely in French), Peyroux proves equally adept at making her own songwriting legacy.
“The four songs that Peyroux co-wrote with [Larry] Klein, Steely Dan's Walter Becker or Norah Jones' Jesse Harris are better structured, verbally and musically, than her earlier originals. And though it may seem paradoxical to claim that such an understated singer sounds more confident and authoritative, that's just what happens when she relaxes every muscle in a song without ever seeming sloppy or arbitrary.” –Geoffrey Himes, Washington Post, October 2006
