Cabaret Scenes CD Review

To listen to the musical rapport between a soulfully expressive and grounded singer like Barb Jungr and the songwriters honored on this new album is to sense a depth of artistic communication between the thrush and musicians that is rare in any area of music.

The mesh of artist and material is so effective as she exposes deep meanings and raw emotional currents not heretofore found by others. Few artists can lay claim to being labeled “one of the world’s premiere song stylists…” Here, Jungr wipes away the competition in her most powerful album to date with The Men I Love: The New American Songbook. In a (cabaret) world too often over-run with ineffective singers, she has few peers.

Gleaned from her unforgettable debut at Manhattan’s Café Carlyle in 2009, the album has Jungr at her zenith, reinventing contemporary songs from the American pop songbook. At last, someone has taken songs written after 1959 and done something truly memorable with them. Jungr’s an amalgam of singers from the same professional mindset as Joan Baez and Nina Simone. She is an original. Her interpretations on the likes of Bruce Springsteen’s “The River,” giving an impassioned reading that will have many many hitting the repeat button, and Todd Rundgren’s overlooked “I Saw the Light” buck the trend in today’s musical hodgepodge and emerge as contemporary classics on an album overflowing with highlights.

Projecting an off-kilter blend of pathos juxtaposed with a yearning alto that can soar when needed, England’s Jungr triumphs on every cut, making this one of the most exciting albums to emerge from a cabaret/concert singer in the last decade. Tenderly fusing “This Old Heart of Mine” with the classic power ballad “Love Hurts” is an act of musical courage and angst that is genius. The lady is, arguably, the finest interpreter of a contemporary lyric of her generation. There isn’t a lazy cut on the disc. Jungr doesn’t do dull. Geniuses never do.

The union with her gifted Musical Director Simon Wallace is about as perfect a match as you’ll find for such material. Their collaboration is moving and intelligent.

John Hoglund
Cabaret Scenes
April 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org



	Barb Jungr The Men I Love: The New American Songbook Naim Label
To listen to the musical rapport between a soulfully expressive and grounded singer like Barb Jungr and the songwriters honored on this new album is to sense a depth of artistic communication between the thrush and musicians that is rare in any area of music. The mesh of artist and material is so effective as she exposes deep meanings and raw emotional currents not heretofore found by others. Few artists can lay claim to being labeled “one of the world’s premiere song stylists…” Here, Jungr wipes away the competition in her most powerful album to date with The Men I Love: The New American Songbook. In a (cabaret) world too often over-run with ineffective singers, she has few peers. Gleaned from her unforgettable debut at Manhattan’s Café Carlyle in 2009, the album has Jungr at her zenith, reinventing contemporary songs from the American pop songbook. At last, someone has taken songs written after 1959 and done something truly memorable with them. Jungr’s an amalgam of singers from the same professional mindset as Joan Baez and Nina Simone. She is an original. Her interpretations on the likes of Bruce Springsteen’s “The River,” giving an impassioned reading that will have many many hitting the repeat button, and Todd Rundgren’s overlooked “I Saw the Light” buck the trend in today’s musical hodgepodge and emerge as contemporary classics on an album overflowing with highlights. Projecting an off-kilter blend of pathos juxtaposed with a yearning alto that can soar when needed, England’s Jungr triumphs on every cut, making this one of the most exciting albums to emerge from a cabaret/concert singer in the last decade. Tenderly fusing “This Old Heart of Mine” with the classic power ballad “Love Hurts” is an act of musical courage and angst that is genius. The lady is, arguably, the finest interpreter of a contemporary lyric of her generation. There isn’t a lazy cut on the disc. Jungr doesn’t do dull. Geniuses never do. The union with her gifted Musical Director Simon Wallace is about as perfect a match as you’ll find for such material. Their collaboration is moving and intelligent. John Hoglund Cabaret Scenes April 2010 www.cabaretscenes.org

Barb Jungr

The Men I Love: The New American Songbook

Naim Label

The Men I Love:
The New American Songbook