Lincoln Centre Peggy Lee, new video clips and Shelter From the Storm reviews begin

Last week saw the first performance of the Peggy Lee James Gavin show at the Lincoln Centre, featuring jazz legend Rebecca Parris, the glorious Nellie McKay, handsome crooner Spencer Day, lovely Jane Monheit and myself, accompanied by the extraordinary Mike Renzi on piano, Jay Leonhart on bass, Craig Haynes on drums and of course James Gavin who wrote the Peggy Lee definitive biography "Is That All There Is? The Strange Life of Peggy Lee". More about the book, here

http://www.amazon.co.uk/That-All-There-Strange-Peggy-ebook/dp/B00IWUT3VC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453897151&sr=1-1&keywords=james+gavin

We had rehearsals the night before the show with Mike, who had played with Peggy many times, and is widely regarded as one of the best jazz accompanists - currently he works with Tony Bennett, I rest my case. Then all day thursday was rehearsals and sound check at the marvellous Appel Room at Lincoln Centre in Manhattan. We were, I think, all quite nervous-in-a-good-way about the show, especially those of us who had new or tricky songs. It was a fabulous night though, and friends came and shared it with us, and we made new friends and gave Peggy our personal tributes - all of us in our own ways - no one did a copycat or even tried to do that. And James Gavin had done the most wonderful job of firstly conceiving the piece and then making it happen from his mind to the stage. His talk between the songs was splendid and managed the tricky job of being informative and also witty and smart. Here are a bunch of photos from the evening.

L to r Rebecca Parris, Nellie McKay, me, Mike Renzi, Jane Monheit, Jay Leonhart, Spencer Day, Jim Gavin and Craig Haynes.

Behind the stage is Manhattan at night, the full length windows give onto the edge of Central Park. Its a buzz and a half having that behind you.

Here's me doing my thing.

Craig drumming, me singing.

We had a lovely hang out after the show with friends and the band.

Jim Gavin, Jay Leonhart, Mike Renzi and I hang in the foyer.

L to R Nellie, jazz singer Mary Foster Conklin, me and the extraordinary force of nature that is Dr Thelma Reyes.

Myself with Andy Hamingson and John McDaniel

With Richard Hillman and John McDaniel

With Rebecca in our dressing room just before heading into the sub zero temperatures of wintery NYC!

With Dr Thelma Reyes wearing the new necklace.

With the writer and presenter and lovely James Gavin.

Managed to leave New York just before the storm hit and the flights started to be  cancelled and got back to two lovely reviews for the new album, one in Kind of Jazz and one in Boycotting trends, both here. Thank you Matthew Ruddick for this

http://www.kindofjazz.com/index.php/component/k2/279-barb-jungr-shelter-from-the-storm

and Alex Ramon for this

http://boycottingtrends.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/cd-review-shelter-from-storm-barb-jungr.html

The Kate released a very short promo video of the live recording they made which will go out nationally on PBS North America in a few weeks, here -

And there are more videos of 2 short clips of us playing live at the Yamaha showcase in Manhattan with Laurence Hobgood on piano, Wilson Torres on percussion and Matt Clohesy on bass, on the BarbJungrsings Youtube channel, here

https://www.youtube.com/user/barbjungrsings

You can pre-order the album from iTunes and Amazon UK, it comes out on feb 19 in the UK and in April in the States.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shelter-Storm-Songs-Troubled-Times/dp/B0196IPPAQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453899449&sr=8-1&keywords=barb+jungr

The UK tour dates are all on the website here

http://www.barbjungr.co.uk

US tour dates will start in May and will be on the website soon, there are 4 nights at Joe's Pub in NYC.

Meanwhile I'm at County Antrim, Northern Ireland on Friday 29th and Saturday 30th January performing Hard Rain with Simon Wallace  on 7th February and 7th February I will be at Crazy Coqs with Davide Mantovani on bass and the wonderful Simon Wallace on piano. All details are at the website link above.

Hope to see you at one of these!

Meanwhile, have fun!