Sunday 26 October 2014

New York City where the people are pretty…….

Aloha y'all - I am here in New York City. Flew courtesy of British Airways, and watched the entire series of True Detective on the journey, which both made it fly past no pun intended, and also put me in the mood for the US of A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_(TV_series)

Arrived at my friend Jane's flat, and we immediately had our trademark Barb-arrival supper, Sushi from the Send Out people. I want the send out people in Pimlico. Why can't they be in Pimlico? I also love the corner store here which is dangerously close and has all the Ben and Jerry diet busting flavours, so I can't go in that store, obviously, except at my peril. I also cannot go in Whole Foods. What is it about Whole Foods? You go in for one tiny thing and end up buying candles made of soya and smelling of French fields and cakes made from old wool that are sugar free but certainly not free from anything else. And you get the bill and have to be stretchered back, from the shock.

Had my first rehearsal with the fabulous Tracy Stark. We open here on tuesday -

http://www.59e59.org/moreinfo.php?showid=181

and there was a wonderful piece by Adam Feldman in Time Out New York, for which, thank you Adam. He had skyped me when I was at my mum's recently and I'd been watching TV and drinking red wine, and we had such a fine chat. You can read it if you've got magnifying eyes, here…..

Adam Feldman's piece in Time Out New York

Here it is online the entire article -

Barb Jungr interview: ‘The joy of these songs is that I have no idea what they mean until I speak them’

The great English channeler tunes into the dark wavelengths of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen

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Barb Jungr
Barb JungrPhotograph: Steve Ullathorne

Barb Jungr is the high priestess of cabaret. Like Nina Simone, to whose work she devoted a 2008 album, the superb English singer approaches her music with devotional intensity and delivers it with deep respect for its mystery and power. But whereas Simone's affect tended toward severity, Jungr is a mostly joyful oracle; even when singing the darkest songs, she often wears a beatific smile or at least a knowing one. In Hard Rain, Jungr's new show at 59E59 Theaters, which begins on Oct 28 and runs through November 9, she takes on what may be her bleakest material yet: wary, hard-nosed, political songs by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, two of popular music's deepest, twistiest bards.

Neither man's work is easy to communicate. But Jungr, who turned 60 this year, is one of the world's leading interpreters of the more recent chapters of the Great American Songbook. She has a particular affinity for densely poetic work, which she infuses with an irrepressible streak of common sense grounded in her Northern English upbringing. Between songs, she is disarmingly garrulous, funny and candid; when she sings, in a warm, breathy voice acutely attentive to rhythm, she is serious but free of pretense. We reached her via Skype recently at a flat in London, where she was enjoying a glass of red wine.

So what is this latest show?

Well, it's the Hard Rain album but live, which hopefully is more exciting. And I think it's particularly interesting at this point in time, tragically. Since I started singing these songs live, every single time we do a gig, every single night, I can see the audience going, "Oh, shit! This is now. Oh, shit!" [Laughs] A lot of those songs are 30 and 40 years old, and they're present.

What modern themes do you think these songs tap into?

Every so often, you come to a line like, for example, in "Everybody Knows," when Cohen says, "Everybody knows that the plague is coming." Well, hello! Hello! Look what's happening. He just pinpoints the fear elements in humanity that recur. ["A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"] is the most extraordinary writing, and I haven't even begun to touch that song yet. It took me at least seven years to scrape the surface of "Like a Rolling Stone"; I didn't even start to get near that till about three years ago, and even now when I sing it, I go, Oh, yeah, another onion layer. With "Hard Rain," I'm still holding the parcel. I get to, for example, "Guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children," and on a daily basis, that means something different to me. It might mean Freetown or a gang war in Brixton or something else, but daily, there's something that line means. To me, it's Shakespearean.

What do you mean by that?

I mean it's universal; it's at the core of humanity. They are both able to just strip it away, so you go, Okay, I'm going to take off my gloves, I'm going to do bare-knuckle fighting, and this is what it is like inside our souls: It's dark, and it's weary, and sometimes it's gorgeous, and sometimes it winks at you, and sometimes it'll spend a night with you, but basically it's dark in there. And I think that's fabulous.

Will you be doing the album straight through?

I won't be doing one of the Dylans, but I've added another Dylan, and I've added a Cohen: "The Future." Simon [Wallace] and I did a really nice arrangement of it.

Will Simon be playing piano for you here?No, Tracy Stark. And Mike Lunoe will be playing percussion. The album is full of percussion, and Mike is so good, and he just jumped at it; he has ideas. And it takes the pressure off Tracy to hold all the rhythm in the left hand, which is a nightmare for my piano players, because everything is so tightly rhythmic. So it's very nice for her; it will free her. 

What do Dylan and Cohen have in common, for you? And where do they differ?

They drink from the same water; they're rooted in that kind of Judeo-Christian biblical morality, which, whether you agree with it or don't agree with it, whatever way you cut the biscuit on that stuff, it's in you, and you're dealing with it. So you get that same kind of imagery in both of them all the time and that same kind of distanced view. I think it's the process that's different. Dylan writes very quickly and makes some corrections, but essentially that's it, whereas Cohen crafts and crafts and crafts. It makes the tumbling quality of Dylan, and the measured quality to Cohen's work. And there's a tenderness to Cohen that I don't find in the same way in Dylan, usually. But the beginning points and the end points are the same. Between them, they've gone on completely different journeys, but they've arrived at those same points.

Many of the lyrics in Dylan and Cohen are densely packed—sometimes elliptical or evocative, rarely straightforward. How do you navigate that as an interpreter? How much do you try to find a meaning to act out, and how much is sort of incantatory?
You hit it right at the end: It's incantatory. That's exactly what it is. If you load meaning onto something, you do it at your peril. Because for it to have life, we've got to by we—I mean me and whoever's in the room if I'm singing it—we've got to discover that meaning at the same time. If I already know what it means there's nothing to discover, there's no space for anybody else to find anything. I'm telling you what to think, and that's rubbish. For me, the joy of these songs particularly is that I have no idea what they mean until I speak them in the moment, and when I speak them, night to night, they mean different things. People who go, "I'm going to show you what this is"—you know what? I'll go read a book. It's the wrong kind of preaching. But if you're speaking in tongues…you don't know what you're saying, and that's exciting. I want people to discover it in the moment with us.

That is the magic for me of cabaret, in a smaller room. It's always different. But nightclub singing is considered by many to be a bit old hat—a retro pursuit, not mass technology.

I think that's changing. I recently sang at a party in a very hot area of London called Hoxton, and it was absolutely packed with bright young things or people who want to be a bright young thing if they're not. And I got up, and I sang three Leonard Cohen songs. And afterward, there was this lineof people—all these young men with hair like samurai in a Kurosawa movie, and they've got little backpacks on queuing up to say, "Listen, I just wanted to say, that was amazing." And I said to Simon afterward: They don't hear people sing! Singing—I don't mean X Factor singing; I mean singing where you're in a room with somebody who is actually singing—is a thing that's quite shocking now. It's sort of like being an antique. You're valuable because you've lived, actually. And I think there's something in that.

I'm going to throw out a few song titles from the show, and I'd like you to say what comes to mind. Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"?

It's a wooden galleon with sails, and everybody's died from lack of fresh water, and it's being tossed on shitty, horrible waves, and the two people left are trying to get the wheel to spin round one way or another. That's "Hard Rain"!

Cohen's 
"First We Take Manhattan"?
Every time I sing it, I think of old Europe and the conflict that is incomprehensible unless you're in old Europe. Walking around the Czech republic, you still can feel in rural areas the weight of the Nazis and the Russian dominance, and for me, that song wormholes through that in a really interesting way.

Dylan's "Masters of War"?

To me, it feels like a woman at a graveside, like those women in Chile who just came out and stood in the street [during the fascist years]: the naked acts of courage that people make when they're beyond pain. That song feels for me like it's beyond pain.

Cohen's "The Land of Plenty"?

I spent some time in Africa in the '90s doing my work over there with the British Council; I wet to Malawi about five times, I went to Cameroon twice, I went to Sudan and Tanzania. And I gave workshops, because I would only sing there if local people could come and have a stage as well. And if you've spent any time there, you just go, "We don't know we're born!" I think that song really gets at that. May the lights of the Land of Plenty shine inside our heads, and may we just stop moaning and whinging and get on with the fact that there are better ways to be in this world. How, I don't know, because apparently we're all on the edge.

Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom"?

There's the moon, and it's come out from a behind a cloud, and you suddenly realize that we're small and insignificant, and then it goes back behind a cloud, and you have a cup of tea, and you go and pet your cat. But that tiny little moment—that's the moment where you understand the universe. And we're given those tiny little gifts of moments, and if we're awake, we find them. And that whole song is about those tiny little gifts in that storm.

See the show!

Barb Jungr

Barb Jungr: Hard Rain

    One of the world's great cabaret singers, England's Jungr is a a joyful oracle, with a particular affinity for densely poetic work. Between songs, she is disarmingly garrulous, funny and candid; when she sings, in a warm, breathy voice acutely attentive to rhythm, she is serious but free of pretense. Her new set at 59E59 is devoted to wary, hard-nosed, political songs by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
    1. 59E59 Theaters 59 E 59th St, between Madison and Park Aves, 10022
    2. Tue Oct 28 - Sun Nov 9


    So this morning I had brunch at the Polish restaurant in the East Village with Robert and Jorge, which was delicious and friendly and tasty, and its windy and a bit chillier, and in a minute I'm off to another rehearsal.

    On the radio right now Frank is singing "Come Rain or Come Shine".


    And tonight I am going to join the fabulous David Kenney for his radio show where I'll be interviewed and also be a guest DJ.

    http://www.oldisnew.org

    Check that out, its a great great show. We should have that kind of show on the BBC, I could present it. There we are, another thing sorted. Thats my pension in place.

    More after we open on Tuesday.

    Meanwhile, post the eclipse - with all the astrological news via the great Tom Lescher - if you haven't found him yes, he's here -


    And connect with all of this and more on the FB pages

    https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBarbJungr

    Till then,

    Namaste, peace, one world one love and joy to all,

    Barb xxx

    Friday 3 October 2014

    last 2 nights of our London season and remembering Pentangle

    So, tonight and tomorrow are the last 2 nights of the new This Wheel's On Fire collection with Simon Wallace on the piano, at Crazy Coqs - been just wonderful so far - great team down there, and a joy to sing the songs. As I'm doing that daily I'm full of copper, brass and gold, like the trees outside the window.

    New video here of Blowin' In The Wind made by Simon Wallace recorded by us at his studio - feel free to share it -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-Tohyg8qJA&list=PL4T-QYCW8ywnDTD-vd26xzsFmhcYlYqWr

    Couple of nice reviews -

    http://musicaltheatrereview.com/wheels-fire-barb-jungr-crazy-coqs/

    and here -

    http://www.kindofjazz.com/index.php/component/k2/146-barb-jungr-the-crazy-coqs-london-1st-october-2014

    and the e-flier is out for the end of October November season in NYC!


    And there was a lovely review in the San Diego Reader of Hard Rain - here -

    http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2014/sep/26/cd-barb-jungrs-emhard-rainem/

    So things are hotting up. It was a busy september, with a ton of rehearsals for the tour of The Little Angel Theatre Production of Bear Hunt - see details here - great cast and wonderful show I'm so proud to have been a small part of. If you have children its for 2 and upwards and its best seen with children because they get SO excited. Total joy.

    http://www.littleangeltheatre.com/touring/current-tours/were-going-on-a-bear-hunt/

    Here's a snippet -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zaazr9YPSFk&list=PL4T-QYCW8ywlxMi_ebJCUCP2C0XdpreDu

    Meanwhile there are a few things now up on the youtube channel and look out there for more - right now Simon "Scorsese" Wallace is working on a video of Blowin' In The Wind we recorded in part at his studio.

    But right now I'm reading JJ Salkeld's Lakeland novels - great on the Lake District - because when I was up there recently I realised I'd forgotten just how stunningly beautiful the Lakes are, and then I found theses detective novels and they're perfect train and bus reading.

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/J-J-Salkeld/e/B00BBE96FY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1412332800&sr=8-1

    And as the day is gorgeous, I'm off for a walk to Battersea Park to say Hi to the Peace Pagoda and think on this world. The Pagoda was given to us by a Japanese Buddhist sect who's whole ethos is Peace.

    Battersea Peace Pagoda

    Well, I was just about to go out and got sidetracked into listening to old Pentangle material - and as is always the way, I start with Youtube and find this great Jool's clip of the band reformed -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4WZhEkio5o

    and then before you know it, I'm trailing Jacqui McShee's career - she's seventy now - still performing - there's youtube of her singing a year ago somewhere. Voice still good. And then of course my mind went hurtling back - to all that time, because i'd have been, what, 15? 15 when Light Flight came out, and Take Three Girls - breakthrough drama for the time. And what was I doing when I was 15? Hanging out in Stockport town centre by the bus stops with the other wisfuls, wishing I was older and could have a decent kaftan. I bought my kaftan from a catalogue. You can't make this stuff up. I better go for a walk. But here's some more Pentangle if you are in the mood for recreating the 1960's English folk scene.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2cBT8--7tA

    And so with that - Namaste! Come see a show.

    http://www.barbjungr.com

    Come to the mailing list -

    http://eepurl.com/23ldv

    And have a wonderful autumn.

    And I nearly forgot to say - Bare Again with the late and sadly missed Russell Churney on piano is now available on iTunes and Amazon for pre-order for the first time you can download this - my first solo album recorded 1998 and with three added tracks in 2007 -

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bare-Again-Barb-Jungr/dp/B00NQO82MK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1412334525&sr=8-2&keywords=bare+again+barb+jungr