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Barb Jungr is in a category all by herself – you might call it “contemporary cabaret,” if that isn’t a complete contradiction in terms. She has pioneered the art of taking popular songs from what, in cabaret or jazz terms, seems like the relatively recent past – songs from singer-songwriters like Leonard Cohen, and, most famously Bob Dylan – or even hardcore rockers like Bruce Springsteen or David Byrne – and does for them what traditional cabaret singers do for Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. She opens them up and interprets them, bringing a great deal of imagination to the task, which is often necessary since, unlike the Porter and Berlin songbooks, these pieces were not meant to have any life beyond the original composer-performer. Her many shows and albums focusing on the Dylan canon are modern classics, and this new project (created with pianist and collaborator John McDaniel), which offers on the songbook of Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner – better known as Sting – promises to be a revelation as well. (For a sample, there’s a video of Miss Jungr rehearsing “Until” – rendered as an old-school waltz ballad – on YouTube.) Count on Miss Jungr, working with gifted accompanist, co-vocalist and co-sar John McDaniel, to wrap these songs around her finger and find all the messages in every bottle.
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Author: Will Friedwald