Recorded in a sweltering New York studio in summer 2015, and
released early last year, Barb Jungr’s album
Shelter from the Storm (Linn Records) [review] was a fine collaboration
with the award-winning pianist Laurence Hobgood, the pair’s fresh and vibrant
versions of a range of material – showtunes, Dylan and Cohen, Bowie and
Mitchell – supplemented by some strong original tracks, all linked, as the
album’s subtitle emphasized, as “Songs of Hope for Troubled Times.”
I wasn’t able to see Jungr and Hobgood perform the album live
during their tour last year, so was glad to have the opportunity to catch the
show at The Other Palace (formerly the St. James Theatre) on Thursday night,
where the performance was the third edition in the venue’s new “Jazz Divas”
programme.
With the album’s US-based personnel (not only Hobgood, but
also Michael Olatuja on double bass and Wilson Torres on percussion) otherwise
engaged, Thursday night found Jungr taking to the stage with her regular
bassist Davide Mantovani and the young pianist Jamie Safir (fresh off a plane
from Mallorca). From the opening “Something’s Coming” through the dynamically
shifting rhythms of “Shelter from the Storm” to the penultimate “What the World
Needs Now is Love” (hilariously prefaced by Jungr), the musicians proved more
than up to the task of navigating Jungr and Hobgood’s idiosyncratic
arrangements, often fleshing out the album versions with distinctive flourishes
and spontaneous interplay all their own. Mantovani’s
work was characteristically elegant, subtle and supple, and Safir’s
playing was a pure delight, by turns passionate and playful, and generating
several spontaneous rounds of applause from the audience.
In great voice, Jungr herself was radiant as always,
creating a warm and witty ambience for the evening, illuminating songs old and new
in revelatory ways. Bruce Springsteen’s “Long Walk Home” was revealed as a
beautiful torch song, Jungr leaning hard into the “Who we are, what we’ll do and what we
won’t” lyric. “Bali Hai” was approached via Brexit. “Life on Mars?/Space
Oddity” was fruitfully developed from
the more skeletal album version, with stunning playing from Mantovani and Safir.
“All Along the Watchtower”, with Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” elegantly
entwined in its folds, was taut and powerful. Tracks drawn from elsewhere in
Jungr’s repertoire – such as her jaunty-deadly jazz strut through Cohen’s
“Everybody Knows” and a gospel-influenced, singalong “Knockin’ On Heaven’s
Door” to close – were also appreciated.
She and Hobgood’s own compositions sat snugly beside this diverse material,
with a soulful “Hymn to Nina” and a soaring “Venus Rising” among the standouts.
While even the most talented contemporary songwriters have
struggled, so far, to write very profoundly about the US in the Time of Trump,
Jungr brilliantly hot-wires us to the present moment by turning the clock back,
finding relevant content in older material. Her version of Steve Goodman’s
“City of New Orleans” was achingly poignant and deeply moving in this context,
its chorus – “Good morning, America, how are you?/Don’t you know me, I’m your
native son” – turning gradually into a devastating enquiry from a soul betrayed.
Her vibrantly funky take on “Woodstock” also reinvigorates the song as an
urgent anthem for our age. Loving and subversive,
witty and engaged, Jungr and her collaborators help us find our way back to the garden.
Further information on the "Jazz Divas" series at The Other Palace here.
