I think Madeleine Peyroux sounds quite a bit like Billie Holiday on her first disk, "Dreamland," Atlantic, but the material is not like a Billie Holiday set, Patsy Cline-associated "Walkin' After Midnight" for one, plus some Peyroux originals. On her second, "Careless Love," Rounder, she sounds a whole lot less like Billie Holiday. I enjoy pretty much every tune on it, "Dance Me to the End of Love" and her own song "Don't Wait Too Long" especially.
"Dreamland" had James Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Regina Carter and other big hitters behind her as a selling point. "Careless Love" has musicians maybe less well known but more tight as a group. Larry Goldings on keyboards and Scott Amendola on drums stand out.
I just like Peyroux's voice. She hasn't the commanding pipes of an Ella Fitzgerald or the pristine presentation of a Sarah Vaughan, but I think she does interesting and surprising things with accent and inflection that make her singing fetching and emotive, as did Billie Holiday, although, as I said, on "Careless Love" Peyroux sings much more in a Madeleine Peyroux way than a Holiday way.
I put the CDs on this week because I caught her in concert Saturday night (my only complaint being that for $40 it should have run longer than a little over an hour). She has a new disk due out this fall and it could be interesting if the show was an indication. She did some new stuff and it struck me as being a further advance toward her own sound. Couple it with her intelligent song writing and the combination should be formidable.
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