Time: 55:15
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Label: Linn Records
Art: Front
01. Bali Hai (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (5:35)
02. Stars Lazy But Shining (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (6:11)
03. Shelter From The Storm (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (5:23)
04. Sisters Of Mercy (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (5:18)
05. Venus Rising (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (5:30)
06. Something's Coming (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (4:29)
07. Woodstock (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (6:10)
08. Hymn To Nina (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (5:25)
09. All Along The Watchtower/In Your Eyes (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (6:07)
10. Life On Mars/Space Oddity (Feat. Laurence Hobgood) (5:01)
Barb Jungr proves she's a genuine jazz marvel
Ivan Hewett finds the brilliant jazz singer on world-beating form
Barb Jungr is the alchemist among jazz singers. She takes dubious songs, and turns them into gold. And she takes songs we already knew were gold, and makes them interestingly different.
That gift was on electrifying display on Wednesday night, at the launch of her new album Shelter from the Storm. Jungr’s previous nine albums, which include reinventions of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, have lofted her slowly but surely to the top rank of jazz singers. Her latest roams across the great American songbook, with songs by Bacharach and Bernstein and Rodger alongside Joni Mitchell and Bowie and Bob Dylan. With her was Grammy award-winning piano virtuoso and ingenious arranger Laurence Hobgood, bassist Davide Mantovani and percussionist Olli Savill.
Jungr swept on and launched off into a song about an imaginary foggy island, conjuring up its presence in the distance. Being a great walker and inveterate traveller, she likes songs that conjure great vistas, which she makes us see in our minds eye with big sweeping gestures. Then we were off into a song in beguine rhythm which seemed weirdly familiar. It took some time to realise it was Richard Rodgers’s kitschy fantasy Bali Hai, from South Pacific. Jungr delivered it with a saucy, tongue-in-cheek relish, which almost rescued it.
But maybe it wasn’t the best place to start, and Hobgood’s new song Stars Lazy but Shining, one of three on words by Jungr, was not the most inspired (the one we heard later, inspired by the death of Nina Simone, was much stronger). The evening really caught fire with Bob Dylan’s Shelter from the Storm. It’s a difficult song to bring off with its endless procession of verses, each more grandiloquent than the last. Jungr and Hobgood did it partly by an unexpected gear-change to a driving rock rhythm. By the end, it had grown to something tremendous.
No doubt about it, Jungr can summon a fabulous bluesy energy, and that rooted, deep quality can be felt in her luscious pianissimo too. You wouldn’t think those qualities could be applied to the weirdness of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, but Jungr cleverly managed to meet the song half-way, thanks partly to Hobgood and Savill’s ingenious recolourings. To bring the same magic to Burt Bacharach’s What the World Needs Now shows just how intelligent a singer she is. She is truly a marvel, who should not be missed.
Ivan Hewett finds the brilliant jazz singer on world-beating form
Barb Jungr is the alchemist among jazz singers. She takes dubious songs, and turns them into gold. And she takes songs we already knew were gold, and makes them interestingly different.
That gift was on electrifying display on Wednesday night, at the launch of her new album Shelter from the Storm. Jungr’s previous nine albums, which include reinventions of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, have lofted her slowly but surely to the top rank of jazz singers. Her latest roams across the great American songbook, with songs by Bacharach and Bernstein and Rodger alongside Joni Mitchell and Bowie and Bob Dylan. With her was Grammy award-winning piano virtuoso and ingenious arranger Laurence Hobgood, bassist Davide Mantovani and percussionist Olli Savill.
Jungr swept on and launched off into a song about an imaginary foggy island, conjuring up its presence in the distance. Being a great walker and inveterate traveller, she likes songs that conjure great vistas, which she makes us see in our minds eye with big sweeping gestures. Then we were off into a song in beguine rhythm which seemed weirdly familiar. It took some time to realise it was Richard Rodgers’s kitschy fantasy Bali Hai, from South Pacific. Jungr delivered it with a saucy, tongue-in-cheek relish, which almost rescued it.
But maybe it wasn’t the best place to start, and Hobgood’s new song Stars Lazy but Shining, one of three on words by Jungr, was not the most inspired (the one we heard later, inspired by the death of Nina Simone, was much stronger). The evening really caught fire with Bob Dylan’s Shelter from the Storm. It’s a difficult song to bring off with its endless procession of verses, each more grandiloquent than the last. Jungr and Hobgood did it partly by an unexpected gear-change to a driving rock rhythm. By the end, it had grown to something tremendous.
No doubt about it, Jungr can summon a fabulous bluesy energy, and that rooted, deep quality can be felt in her luscious pianissimo too. You wouldn’t think those qualities could be applied to the weirdness of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, but Jungr cleverly managed to meet the song half-way, thanks partly to Hobgood and Savill’s ingenious recolourings. To bring the same magic to Burt Bacharach’s What the World Needs Now shows just how intelligent a singer she is. She is truly a marvel, who should not be missed.
Shelter From The Storm
I love this singer, but this record is weak. The pianist is a so and so musician, and the songs are too long.
ReplyDeleteThe True Art Is Incomprehensible - to many!
ReplyDeleteBarb Jungr: Shelter from the Storm—Songs of Hope for Troubled Times
Linn Records
2016
Barb Jungr's art makes a grand argument for her being the most innovative singer in jazz since Cassandra Wilson. She has single-handedly emerged as the principle momentum behind expanding the "Standards Songbook" forward in time to include the Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie. Her previous recording, Hard Rain (Linn, 2014) was a revelation in the music of Dylan and Cohen, released after her very well received Every Grain of Dand (Linn, 2002). She has shown herself a smart collector of her repertoire and instrumental in the unique arrangements she employs. On Barb Jungr: Shelter from the Storm—Songs of Hope for Troubled Times, Jungr taps the resources of pianist (and Kurt Elling accompanist) Laurence Hobgood, in a simple jazz piano trio format to address another batch of Dylan and Cohen songs with David Bowie, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bernstein and Sondheim, and Joni Mitchell thrown in. Hobgood does the arranging duties, imbuing the music with a certain dramatic pathos that drives like some divine momentum as a remnant through the collection. The title piece is presented as a complex tone poem that evolves from a simple presentation to a complex and demanding ending. The mashup of "All Along the Watchtower" with Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" is inspired and intelligent. A fine effort by all.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/jazz-quanta-april--five-women-ii-sarah-vaughan-barb-jungr-marty-elkins-phyllis-blanford-and-tina-phillips-barb-jungr-by-c-michael-bailey.php?width=1024
Can you re up this one, please? Thanks in advance.
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ReplyDeleteThank you so much! Great post and even greater generosity in sharing.
ReplyDeleteFriends: Is a re-up possible on this one? Many thanks for all you do here!
ReplyDeleteDrRay3
DrRay3, new link posted. As usual, we remain at your disposal.
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