BARB JUNGR has a new CD out with the pianist Laurence Hobgood, who worked for nearly two decades in a Grammy-winning partnership with Kurt Elling, and is about to do tour dates and a Pizza Dean Street residency with Hobgood. Sebastian found out more:
It’s all happening for singer Barb Jungr. Tomorrow, February 19th a new album Shelter From The Storm, with the Laurence Hobgood is released on Linn. It has new arrangements of contemporary songs. An hour-long show, recorded last autumn at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Center in Old Saybrook , Connecticut, (extract above) goes out on nationwide PBS TV in the US. She is touring in the UK with Laurence Hobgood, and there is already talk of another album.
Her activity and touring in the US has expanded significantly. As well as residencies in New Yok, she has performed in Indianapolis, Cleveland, St Louis, LA, San Francisco and New Jersey, and will shortly be in Palm Springs and Washington DC – even if some Americans do still struggle with her first name mysteriously not being….“Bob.”
Barb Jungr explained to me how her partnership with Hobgood started with the idea of wanting to make a recording in the US “I thought it would be really nice to do something over there. There is a slight Vibe thing that is different. It’s not about quality, it’s about vibe. I wondered what would happen . Wondered if it would generate something new in me. That;s what you’re always after, because otherwise you just carry on doing what you do.”
Jungr suggested the idea to her US manager, who came up with the idea of Laurence Hobgood. The pianist saw Jungr’s Dylan show Hard Rain (the show incidentally received a stunning review in the New York Times ). “He loved it” ..Hobgood’s first positive reaction on hearing the show was to remark how impeccable Jungr’s tuning is. .They then started to working on a programme together in January 2015, From the moment they started, she says, “he just started throwing songs, ideas, stuff at the table . I thought he’s got a completely fresh approach and that’s really interesting”
After those meetings, she noticed a change in her singing and so did others: “People said: ‘your singing, Has sometthing happened? Because your singing is completely different… ‘It’s exactly what I had wanted.”
And how does she sum up Laurence Hobgood? “He’s easy to work with, easy to write with. Wonderful player – so are the people I work with here – but he’s got that fast – FAST thing… .you kind of get blown away because it can be so idiotically virtuosic. And he is such a smart lovely person “
LINKS: Shelter from the Storm is on Linn Records
The sesssion from The Kate
Barb Jungr’s next UK show is at the Orange Tree in Richmond on Weds 24th Feb, her Nina Simone show with Simon Wallace and Davide Mantovani
Review: Barb Jungr at Crazy Coqs from 2013
TOUR DATES
16/03/2016 Newbury Corn Exchange
17/03/2016 Bury St Edmunds Apex
18/03/2016 St George’s Hall Liverpool
19/03/2016 Maidstone Pizza
21 to 24/03/2016 (Four nights) Pizza Express Dean Street
05/04/2016 Portsmouth Live Lounge
07/04/2016 Core at Corby
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