Barb Jungr & John McDaniel: That’s Life

| December 8, 2016

Barb Jungr & John McDaniel

That’s Life

Birdland, NYC, November 28, 2016

Reviewed by Victoria Ordin for Cabaret Scenes

 

Barb Jungr & John McDaniel Photo: Rick Stockwell

Barb Jungr & John McDaniel
Photo: Rick Stockwell

Through what turned out to be a fire alarm spanning three songs, British jazz singer Barb Jungr delivered the funniest hour of cabaret I’ve ever seen. Many singers are intermittently funny but couldn’t pull off a straight hour of standup. Jungr could. But then, one would miss out on some of the most imaginative, expressive singing in cabaret today on either side of the pond. Promoting Come Together: Barb Jungr and John McDaniel Perform The Beatles, Jungr and McDaniel sang material from the album along with that of Sondheim, Burt Bacharach, Boy George, Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash and others.

As if the first protracted interruption from upstairs weren’t enough, Jungr and McDaniel soldiered on through two more songs before the noise stopped. After the first alarm (which sounded like a loud police intercom rather than a siren), the singer ad libbed hilariously, saying that her Spinal Tap fantasies had at last been fulfilled. After the show, a British woman who lives in the city approached me: “She was brilliant. And I hope what-evah else you intend to write, you say she was a real TROOP-ah!”

After opening unremarkably with “That’s Life” (Dean Kay/Kelly Gordon), McDaniel welcomed Jungr to New York as though it were her first time here (or at Birdland). “Have you gone mad?” she asked, with a roll of the eye. An hour of priceless shtick—a big-hearted musical version of The Bickersons—followed.

Jungr’s patter is truly artful. Sometimes you don’t know quite where she’s coming from—or landing—but it’s a delight to watch her mind leap and dart around a song. After a life of saying no to singing Sondheim, she finally gave way to McDaniel’s badgering. He makes one do things one swore one wouldn’t, Jungr explained. Sondheim’s songs have “so many words and they’re all the same!” But “What Can You Lose?” was an interpretive tour de force, with interjections like “bugger” after “as a friend, nothing more.” If this is any indication of her feel for Sondheim, she should sing him more often.

“I’m a Stranger Here Myself” (Kurt Weill/Ogden Nash) was like two numbers: the side-splitting prelude about a song she calls a walk “along a little knife edge” and a real “STINKER,” and the song itself. Blaming her partner-in-crime for foisting this challenge on her, she nevertheless sang the difficult song with feeling and elegance. “Trains and Boats and Planes” was a letdown after the prior two numbers, but that’s more a matter of material than execution, which was fine. McDaniel, deservedly famous as a musical director and personality/host, has a lovely voice that works well with Jungr’s. Their harmonies throughout the evening were excellent and his solo from the Broadway musical Taboo was poignant.

One of the evening’s highlights was “When a Man Loves a Woman” (Calvin Lewis/Andrew Wright), the classic that was a hit for R&B legend Percy Sledge. As with other numbers, it’s hard to say which is more entertaining—the patter leading up to the song or the song itself. Jungr is a world-class raconteur and her story about seeing Sledge perform to 20 people should be recorded and shared widely. “My Life” (Billy Joel) was great, with a terrific jazz riff midway through the duet, even if (like me) you can’t bear Joel.

The second half of the show was all Beatles and inspired me to buy the record, which has already received great press in the U.K. “Back in the USSR” (Paul McCartney), complete with harmonica, was positively thrilling. The arrangement of “Here Comes the Sun” (George Harrison) only deepened my love of the song, as did a stunning arrangement and rendition of the Harrison ballad “When My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

Jungr prefaced the title track of the new album, “Come Together” (John Lennon) with a funny bit about opium dens, noting that she has performed the song for people too young to have been in one. Then, surveying the crowd, she quipped, “I’ve had a look about the audience and that’s not a problem here!” With typical modesty, she joked that Come Together was album of the week in Norfolk: “There are cows singing our songs!” “Imagine” (Lennon), the encore, made for a beautiful end to a memorable night.

 

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Category: Cabaret Reviews, New York City, New York City Cabaret Reviews, Regional

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