Chances

What motivated former Halifax-based roots music champ Jill Barber to make such a radical shift – from intimate acoustically resonant ruminations to post-World War II-era American big band arrangements, lushly orchestrated à la Nelson Riddle circa 1952 by producer/guitarist Les Cooper, and original songs that evoke the romantic pop excesses of Doris Day and Peggy Lee – is anyone's guess. Chances is too good to be post-modern irony or a self-indulgent exercise in pure kitsch.

These are great songs, earnestly arranged and deftly executed, adorned with warm and fuzzy violins, period pizzicato punctuation, crystalline piano glissandos, jazzy hot-club fiddle, clarinet and guitar interplay and infectious swing-time rhythms. And Barber's voice, augmented occasionally with Andrews Sisters harmonies, is in exceptional form. In its encompassing scope – eerily prescient jazz elements ("One More Time," "Take It Off Your Mind") and resonant folk-blues inflections ("Oh My My," "Wishing Well") take the saccharine edge of the more cloying revisionist efforts (the title track, "All My Dreams") – Chances is a genuine curiosity, a musically engaging retro-tribute made up of completely contemporary parts. Where it's going to take Barber's career, however, is anyone's guess. Top Track: "Be My Man," for its promise "to be good," and the wonderful, Lombardo-ish horn and string accompaniment.
-Greg Quill