Barb Jungr: Bob, Brel And Me

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Jamie Safir (p)
Jenny Carr (p, org)
Rod Youngs (d)
Gabriella Swallow (clo)
Barb Jungr (v, perc)
The Fourth Choir (v)
Mark Lockheart (s)
Christoph Bracher (v)
Pete Horsfall (t)
Mike Lindup (v)
Davide Mantovani (db)

Label:

Kristalyn

October/2019

Media Format:

CD

Catalogue Number:

KLCD06

RecordDate:

date not stated

Bob, Brel And Me is a carousel of styles and varied arrangements. To state the obvious, the Bob is Dylan and the Brel is the Belgian songwriter. It opens funkily with a jazz ensemble reading of Barb Jungr and Mike Lindup of Level 42's ‘Rise & Shine’. Along the way, it moves through a terse piano and double-bass accompaniment on Jacques Brel's witty ‘The Cathedral’ (in Robb Johnson's translation of ‘La Cathédrale’) and the Jungr & Parker-era song of loss, ‘No One Else Could Ever Wear Your Shoes’ (with that fine-detail couplet: “The day we met/A private function/A broken lace/On Clapham Junction…”). It finishes with Brel's ‘Quand On N'a Que L'amour’ - translated as ‘If We Only Had Love’, which goes from torch song to ending on a climatic choral swell, thanks to The Fourth Choir, London's LGBT Classical Choir. Bob, Brel And Me is a consolidation rather than a career advancement. Jungr's approaches to Dylan's songs, notably evinced on Every Grain of Sand (2002) and Man In The Long Black Coat (2011), continue to excite. She soars on the church-tempo ‘Buckets of Rain’ (adding fresh sexy sass to “I like your smile/And your fingertips”) and swings on ‘Simple Twist of Fate’. A labour of love, marrying enchantment and mystery to everyday emotions, from a magisterial song interpreter and vocalist.

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