A cafe in Paris, a cocktail lounge in Palm Springs, a beachside bar in Rio De Janeiro, a lokanta in Istanbul. Jill Barber’s French repertoire is played around the world and has earned her a following that transcends language barriers. It’s the soundtrack to an experience. It’s a surprising achievement for an Anglo-Canadian artist who only began her affair with the French language in her late twenties, following a moment of inspiration during the Montreal Jazz Festival, where she sang a few notes of French to an enraptured crowd. Shortly after, Barber enrolled herself in a late immersion French school in the South of France, eventually emerging with her own recordings of the songs and poets that inspired her: Piaf, Gainsbourg, Aznavour. She titled the collection Chansons. The album was released in 2013. Chansons quickly became her most globally successful album to date, being streamed over 120 million times, receiving countless playlist placements, gaining 1.25 monthly listeners on Spotify, and sparking tours to Europe, Japan, Mexico, and the Middle East, as well as top jazz festival billings across Canada. “For me, singing in French is an embodied, sensual experience… it’s a new language in which to explore and express myself artistically- and be vulnerable.” A decade later, Jill has reunited with Grammy Award-nominated producer Drew Jurecka (Dua Lipa, Alvvays, Dermot Kennedy) to produce ENCORE!, the long-awaited sequel to Chansons. It is a delightfully arranged, and lushly orchestrated album, featuring brand new interpretations of classic songs by Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Blossom Dearie, Django Reinhardt and Barbara. “Ordinaire”, made famous by Robert Charlebois and Céline Dion sees Jill interpreting the Quebec classic song with a hauntingly beautiful performance “I approached this performance like an actor might, becoming the central character in the song, in all her fragility”. De temps en temps, was released in 1939 by African American Josephine Baker, and the song propelled her to stardom; “At the time it was risqué for a woman to sing about her desire for physical affection without the need for a relationship- and I believe it’s still quite sexy and empowering today”. The French have a saying for a particularly pleasurable sensation that is so unique, it’s difficult to put into words- when Jill Barber sings in French, there is a pleasing quality, a “je ne sais quoi” that is hard to describe, but easy to enjoy. Now she’s done it again- ENCORE!
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