MADELEINE PEYROUX

She has been referred to as the 90's Billy Holiday.  This 39 year old jazz singer and Parisian busker performed at the Musical Instrument Museum last night and SWMBO and I were lucky enough to have tickets to her show.

Peyroux was born in Athens, Georgia but soon moved to Hollywood, New York and, at the age of 13, Paris.  A couple of years later she was singing on the streets of the Latin Quarter and passing the hat.  A year later she was singing jazz standards and touring Europe as part of The Wandering Blues and Jazz Band.

She is an accomplished singer, songwriter and guitarist.  At last night's performance she was backed by 8 musicians, three of them on loan from the Phoenix Philharmonic Orchestra.  With the strings for romantic songs and her piano-bass-drums-guitar backing for jazz, country and gentle rock-and-roll numbers it was a stellar concert.

She started off with covers of several songs by Ray Charles and moved on to some of her own as well as others by Serge Gainsbourg, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman and Warren Zevon.  All in all it was wonderful.

Peyroux sings equally well in French and English and boasts a fine vocal range.  If you get a chance to see and hear her, don't pass it up.