TAKE THE “Z” TRAIN
The Return of Madeleine Peyroux: Covering Dylan, L. Cohen and Loving Jazz
Contributing Editors
It's been eight years—-which is a long gap in music—-between the two fine recordings released by vocalist Madeleine Peyroux. Stylistically, she's as timeless as ever. Many compare the timbre of her voice to Billie Holiday, but she's far from being an imitator. Yet like Lady Day, she's brilliant at covering standards and creating the right sultry mood and adding her own smoldering stamp. Careless Love, on Rounder Records, is her newest effort. It begins with a wonderful rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me To the End of Love." The material chosen on the CD is well thought out. Check out her relaxed, sumptuous treatment of Bob Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" or the heartrending interpretation of Hank Williams' "Weary Blues" or "I'll Look Around," a smoky, traditional jazz performance.
Madeleine's debut album, Dreamland, appeared on the Atlantic label in 1996 and featured such fine uptown Manhattan jazz players as pianist Cyrus Chestnut and trumpet player Marcus Printup. Now eight years later, Careless Love, arranged and recorded by West Coast producer Larry Klein, is entirely jazzy (with Larry Goldings on organ), but with the precise flavorings of blues, soul and American roots sounds.
Recently, we caught up with Madeleine while she was on tour in the Midwest. Eight years is a long time for a magnificent songstress like Madeleine to be away. It's great to have her back where she belongs—on jazz radio!
KZ: Hard to believe, but Careless Love sounds even better than Dreamland. It's been such a long stretch between records. What happened?
MP: The practical side of it was I started to lose my voice while we were recording the second record on Atlantic. We started to postpone sessions. That was mainly how things started to falter. From that point on, the label started to dissolve. There was a merger. [Producer Yves] Beauvais left Atlantic, moved to Sony and was going to sign me there. I spent a lot of time in limbo. The truth is he signed me to Sony and then dropped me from Sony without recording anything.
KZ: What happened to your voice?
MP: I wasn't used to the kind of pressure that was put on me to make the second record. I was at a loss to keep it together. I got hoarse because of stress. [Today] with more technical information and the right regimen, it's a lot easier to handle.
KZ: Did you record at all between these two records?
MP: I did some partial recordings with Atlantic within the first couple of years Dreamland came out, but we never finished anything. Nothing was released. Then I played with my street band a lot. There was a lot of pressure from Atlantic for me to make a more mainstream recording. That's where it all started. I don't think I knew what to do. When we made Dreamland, I was ready to go back and move forward in the same area. We ended up making a lot of recordings in Nashville with some great local Nashville musicians in a studio with a top producer spending a lot of money. But I think that somehow it didn't work out. I asked the producer in Nashville to bring down Marcus Printup and Wycliffe Gordon from Lincoln Center Orchestra, and they did. Maybe it was a lack of direction; maybe it was too much direction. I think I wanted the sound to be more informal, but I didn't know how to call the shots.
KZ: What were the events that led up to Careless Love?
MP: Columbia finally dropped me and Yves said we weren't going to make the second record we had been talking about all this time. I really needed to go out and work again. I managed to book myself for a year. Then I was approached by Rounder and went looking for a deal with a few other smaller labels just to see what was out there. I played and gigged, and Rounder gave me a decent standard contract to work with. It seemed like it came together. When I was freed from the Sony deal, within a month I walked into the Bottom Line and Alan Pepper asked me if I wanted to play there. He remembered me, and then other clubs called me up. Then a fan started a web site for me, and clubs around the East Coast called me. Then a few festivals called me, which was phenomenal. Rounder was interested and I was already performing.
KZ: How is it different now?
MP: This time around, I recognized that freedom was the biggest commodity and my most valuable possession. I'm older and a little bit wiser. I'm grateful for this new record.
KZ: How were the sessions for Careless Love? Did they take a long time?
MP: It was amazing. I went out to Los Angeles to stay with the producer, Larry Klein, in pre-production during the entire winter. I left New York on December 5th before the first snow. I learned new songs and worked on the repertoire and talked through the arrangements for three months. Larry had lots of ideas.
KZ: How would you describe the direction of the record?
MP: Larry had this idea of making it a mood-based and mood-driven record. You could take all of these different kinds of songs and put them together as if it were a dream state. I still didn't understand it until we went into the studio and spent three days laying down basic tracks with four guys. That was the bulk of the recording. The rest of the instrumentation was done in overdubs over the course of three days. Then my vocals took several weeks. The bulk was done in one month, and they were mixing while I did my vocals at the same time. The three days of the basic tracks were magical. Larry played the demos we had done and handed out the lead sheets and chord charts. I'm playing rhythm guitar on some of the songs. The recordings are very minimal. The musicians hardly overdo anything, and the spirit was together.
KZ: Who picked out the songs?
MP: About half of these songs is new material for me that I learned before we went into the studio with Larry. The other half is songs I had been working on over the past few years. I co-wrote one song with two other people, "Don't Wait Too Long."
KZ: Do you get tired of being compared to Billie Holiday?
MP: No. How can you be? I could never take it as anything but a very large compliment. People ask me specifically if I try to sound like her. Is it my intention to sound like Billie Holiday? As honest as I can be, as an artist most of the time you don't know what you're going to do. I'm just growing, and hopefully finding my own voice.
KZ: Do you have any particular favorite tracks on Careless Love? Or does it change?
MP: My favorite song right now is "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." The songs on this record were carefully handpicked. I think they're all great. They each have room for growth when I go out and play them live. The arrangements are set up that way, so it's exciting to play them with other musicians.
KZ: Waylon Jennings once said, after recording "Luckenbach, Texas" that somebody ought to remind him that he was going to have to sing those songs for the rest of his life.
MP: I used to dread singing my own songs more than singing somebody else's. Right now this record is full of discovery. It's jazz and I'm lucky there's so much room for improvisation. It was mind-blowing to play these songs with a different format. For example, I played in Austin, Texas at South By Southwest with Anthony Wilson and the rhythm section from the record. They did some things with these songs that we hadn't done in the studio. There was a little bit of a funkier groove.
KZ: So you've been touring with Keb Mo' and others?
MP: We're playing zoos. It's wonderful. We did two nights in Minneapolis. They have signs and t-shirts that say, "Please don't feed the musicians." The zoo in Minneapolis had a wonderful amphitheater and you're surrounded by lots of open, natural grounds. Lakes and stuff like that. But I didn't see any animals. There were lots of mosquitoes, though. I also did a show in Chicago, Jammin' at the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was fun.
Check Out the Latest Book By the Z Train Columnists!
We're proud to announce the release of our newest book—our first music book since 1994. It's called Sing My Way Home: Voices of the New American Roots Rock. It features interesting essays, interviews and think pieces on vital American roots artists like Gram Parsons, Lucinda Williams, Rodney Crowell, and many more. It's published by BackBeat Books and is available now in bookstores. If you're a radio programmer or media person who follows our columns and would be interested in scheduling interviews, reviews or giveaways, contact us via JazzWeek at Zimmermen@jazzweek.com and we'll pass on your request to our publishers. We have many other books coming out in the next year, but don't miss out on this one! — The Z'men 
