Travel Tip: Jazz in Italy
Madeleine Peyroux

Many have raved about Madeleine Peyroux' smoke-and-whiskey vocals, often comparing her to the late, great Billie Holiday. Others wondered how someone so young could perform classic songs by Holiday, Bessie Smith and Patsy Cline so convincingly as to make them sound like her own. She applies a cosmopolitan sense to vintage blues and country ballads making them sound utterly enchanting and thoroughly modern. She has a bittersweet, brokenhearted alto; she lingers and slides off notes, finding emotion in the slow, sad, fade rather than the obvious vocal burst.