Patricia Barber, photo by Jimmy Katz

Patricia Barber found the magic of music when she was a toddler. It came out of her father's saxophone. "I used to put my hand in the bell of it and feel the vibration of the music, which is pretty exciting,” Barber said in a phone interview.

Her father was a jazz musician who occasionally filled in with the orchestra of his friend, the legendary Glenn Miller.

Though her father showed her the joy of music, he also represented the unstable nature of making a career of it. He stopped playing professionally, went back to school and became a pharmacist in South Sioux City, Nebraska. One might think that dose of reality would have made Barber wary of becoming a jazz musician.

"It did. Until it didn't," Barber said with a chuckle.

It wasn't the saxophone, but the piano that most resonated with Barber. She grew into an astute, adventurous artist. Her distinctive, compelling, intricate music - as a pianist-vocalist-composer-songwriter - has earned widespread acclaim.

She tours with her superb Patricia Barber Trio, featuring Larry Kohut on bass and Jon Deitemyer on drums. DownBeat Magazine said of Barber's musical creations: "Barber braids wrenching, elemental poetry into a private musical language fashioned from the yearning ache of Bill Evans' piano, Joni Mitchell's zigzag introspections, Jobim's winking mix of high end philosophy and pastel melody and an occasional explosion of skronk and funk." And JazzTimes declared simply, "Few performers in or out of jazz are as consistently brilliant as Patricia Barber. ...Brainy. Beautiful."

Patricia Barber, photo by Jammi York

Music came naturally to Barber. "I'm the youngest of three girls. My father tried to interest all three of us in music. But music is very much genetic, and with the other two, it didn't take," Barber said with a little laugh.

When she was 4, her father taught her basic piano technique. As she displayed remarkable ability, her parents quickly arranged for formal lessons with the town's music teacher.

In college, Barber studied classical music, with the goal of teaching. "That seemed like a logical thing to do, and my mother pushed me in that direction, because there's more security — you get a paycheck. It doesn't make sense, really, to go off to a big city and become a jazz musician. It's a much more insecure lifestyle. Nonetheless, that's what I ended up doing, much to her chagrin. But then she became a great fan.

"It seemed like the jazz musicians were having more fun in the practice rooms than the classical musicians. That kind of did it for me," said Barber, who is now based in Chicago.

Barber's aim was to become a jazz pianist. Then she saw an ad on the university bulletin board, seeking a girl singer for a band performing standards.

"It seemed like a much better job than anything else I could get. I applied. And I learned to sing on the job. I had been chosen in the high school musicals, so I knew I could sing. But to sing in a club and to sing that kind of music is a whole different thing. I knew that kind of music from my mother, who was a great singer. It hadn't occurred to me that that's what I was going to be doing. But that's what ended up happening."

Revealing her innermost feelings through singing and songwriting was a tremendous leap. "It's difficult for me. I've always had stage fright. And singing is especially intimate, so it's always difficult for me, especially when I started writing songs."

She fills prestigious theaters and plays major festivals. But Barber still enjoys playing on Monday nights, when she's in town, at Chicago's Green Mill, a cozy, historic spot. Visiting and local celebrities flock to hear her.

"It's a great, authentic jazz club from the 1920s," Barber said. "It's been preserved the way it was. Also, they keep the audience quiet, so it's very much a concert atmosphere on Monday nights."

For Barber, it's an ideal place to experiment with new compositions, to take chances. "It's a laboratory for me. I bring songs in and shape them there, depending on how the audiences is reacting - or not reacting."

For years, As she began to form her own songwriting style, Barber dissected the Great American Songbook. "I had notebooks and notebooks full of research. Then I started studying poetry. Studying poetry is very interesting - how you can get away with different kinds of rhyme schemes, so that the ear still recognizes a pattern."

Barber has carefully analyzed the role of harmonies. "Bringing more sophisticated harmony to jazz is something that I really am proud of doing, bringing classical voice leading techniques into the sort of restricted jazz harmonic language. Renee Fleming calls what I'm writing 'artsongs.' And classical vocalists sing them, as well as jazz singers. So I kind of made up a hybrid."

When she begins to write a song, Barber thoroughly researches the subject. "Whatever I'm writing about, like if I'm writing about a love affair in the southwest of France, I feel like I need to place it in a landscape that's authentic. So I research that either by going there or reading a lot about it. If I write about cooking, I will read to find as many transitive verbs that have to do with cooking as possible. I'm thinking of doing a grammar song, which would take me about a year. That would be fun, a mass of research."

Barber has been recording since 1992. In 2006, she released "Mythologies," a set of songs based on Ovid's "Metamorphoses." Her "Smash" album came out in 2013. [Her latest is "Higher"]. Since then, much to her manager's exasperation, she has eschewed record labels, preferring to make music available to her fans herself. She offers high quality live recordings through her website.

"The infrastructure of the music business is falling apart. I don't see any future in it. So I feel good doing it the way I'm doing it."

Music has always made Barber feel good. "I considered doing something that made more sense - run for office, become a doctor, become a lawyer. But music is the most interesting thing I can think of. It's really a lovely way to spend a life."

For the latest on this artist, visit www.patriciabarber.com.