I really like Patricia Barber. Definitely not for all jazz or pop fans because she is rather unique. I have the first three albums, Cafe Blue in the great sounding vinyl version that Music Direct put out in cooperation with Premonition back in the mid 90s, and the next two on CD. All good, although I prefer the more out there stuff from the first two. She can get pretty slinky-sexy sometimes with her wordplay and I like it. Some call her too pretentious, but that's when she starts to get interesting to me. Most jazz and pop these days is just too safe. All very nice sounding too which has gotten her a lot of attention (and derision) from the audiophile crowd, but that's just a side issue. I don't always like the pop covers she does, but they're almost always interesting.

Nice article/review today for the first 4 albums at PopMatters.