Christopher Muther
Music Critic

With just her piano and a warm, engaging voice, Barnaby creates songs that harken back to the days when singer-songwriters like Carole King roamed the earth.

Alan Cackett
Editor

Washington Square...harks back to the classic singer-songwriter days of Carole King, Judy Collins, and Carly Simon. Jacquie is a crafty, experienced vocalist who knows how to build and cultivate a mood, punctuate a line and build on the great foundations and support supplied by her studio band on such excellent songs as Good Intentions, Silence is Nothing New, and The Nothing Waltz. Never concerned with proving her range or vocal power, she gives these songs a quiet, steady, but also authoritative sheen, exhibiting a feel for melody and a timing that comes only from truly understanding what she had in mind when she penned these lyrics.

Dave Clarke
Music Critic

New York based singer Jacquie Barnaby's Washington Square spotlights her strong vocals, songwriting and keyboard playing. More pop than jazz, there's a definite hint of Aimee Mann in both her vocals and piano playing, and the spirit of Tori Amos in the songwriting. And it's songs like "Silence is Nothing New" and "The Nothing Waltz" that caught my ear.

With the resurgence of the singer-songwriter genre you will find Ms. Barnaby well worth a listen.

John Quinn
Music Critic

The music of Jacquie Barnaby is as wonderful as it is hard to define. Even her own suggestion of "acoustic pop jazz" somehow fails to do it justice. Her well-crafted, piano-driven debut, Washington Square, is garnering rave reviews and heavy airplay on college radio around the US and in the UK and Canada. With a voice as smooth and powerful as a Mercedes-Benz and a penchant for emotionally driven songs, comparisons to Aimee Mann and Eva Cassidy are well deserved.

Eric Danton
Music Critic

Barnaby excels at moody piano rock, and her voice is expressive without being syrupy.

Johnny Pigeau
Music Critic

Washington Square, Jacquie Barnaby’s debut CD, is pure as ivory, searingly
elegant and enchantingly haunting. Barnaby’s vocals are angelic and soulful,
punctuated by erudite lyrics that speak of pain and love equally with staggering grace. The singer’s voice—like Aimee Mann’s yet perhaps more crisp—is a marvelous instrument itself, lilting and rising on cue, and perfectly reflecting the mood of each song.

Barnaby’s songs are about real places, honest feelings and multidimensional people. Some of the album’s best moments arise from Barnaby’s confident and achingly beautiful piano arrangements, which drive each song, meandering playfully, mysteriously, dipping and diving like a winding country road. There is also beauty in the spaces in between. The band that backs Barnaby is air tight and skilled, astutely layering the lush soundscape with vigor and without ever being obtrusive.

When the last of these 12 songs fades out, the silence that follows seems cruel. There is someone’s soul deep within these magnificent songs. You can nearly see it—and you can surely feel it. Every so often an artist comes along who is so refreshing in intention and so confident in voice that they remind us how dynamic and powerful music can be. One of these is Jacquie Barnaby.