Creators: Barb Jungr and Jenny Carr
A Barb Jungr show is always more than the songs, broad-ranging and carefully selected though they are: each show is really about Jungr herself, sharing stories and unexpected confidences that make every person in the room feel like they have a private moment with the performer. Her latest show at the Crazy Coqs, Barb Junger and Her Trio: My Marquee, a preview of her forthcoming album, is filled with those intimacies, from going to Lidl with her dad for the first time to remembering her eco-warrior days and admitting to not having a clue what one of the songs is about. Every performer includes some structured chat, but no one chats like Barb Jungr.
This show is built around performers at The Marquee in Soho, Jungr plays eleven numbers across the 75-minute performance with the help of her ‘trio’, pianist and co-creator Jenny Carr, bass player Dudley Phillips and drummer Jonathan Lee, bringing to each one her distinctive jazz-blues sound, sometimes transforming them completely. A version of Itchykoo Park by The Small Faces is blended in a rather cheeky medley with Flowers in the Rain by The Move and Hole in My Shoe by Traffic, the singer taking the audience through the experience of a ‘trip’ with Jungr’s vocal effortlessly blending them into one consistent melody with a strong emotional pull.
And Jungr isn’t averse to an aside or two mid-song. In a Yardbirds’ medley of Heart Full of Soul, Shapes of Things and For Your Love, she steps aside from the microphone during an instrumental moment to joke with the audience. Later, introducing Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past, Jungr explains her enthusiasm for the beginning and end of the number but we ‘just have to put up with the middle bit’, challenging the audience to help work out what the song means and pulling several funny faces during the bits no one understands.
But of course, everyone’s here for the vocals and Jungr has a such a lovely range, often adding interesting sliding scales within songs that showcase the richness and malleability of her voice. The encore song, John Martyn’s Go Down Easy, is lush and silky, a slow but impactful conclusion to the show that mixes mellow tunes including Traffic’s Paper Sun and The Sunshine of Your Love by Cream that really showcase Jungr’s vocal quality, capturing the 60s sound but making it her own, giving each song a contemporary feel.
The opening number Led Zeppelin’s The Immigrant Song is a little drowned out by the bass and drums and the set list very briefly goes awry, but Jungr is soon back on track with outstanding versions of Substitute by The Who given context with a story about a period in flux and the slender feeling of hope they had then which builds an intensity through the song from a quiet melancholy to a furious political anger. And no Jungr show would be complete without the Bob Dylan interpretations for which she is best known, and This Wheel’s on Fire doesn’t disappoint, a ferocious finale. A fine tribute to The Marquee club and an excuse to spend some time listening to more fascinating stories from Barb Jungr.
Runs until 19 May 2023
