Ute Lemper - But One Day...
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Free Music Notes for But One Day...
Free Music Review: I love Ute
Hit: 5 Stars
While her German cabaret repetoire is my favorite, this has enough to please even the pickiest Utetarian.Free Music Review: Main Stream Ute. Great mix of traditional and personal
Hit: 5 Stars
`but one day...' is a long drink of water for Ute Lemper fans. Its choice of songs is positioned almost perfectly in the middle of her defining repertoire of Kurt Weill, Jacques Brel, Steven Sondheim and classic German cabaret songs. It is neither all German / all Weill nor very edgy like her selection of songs on `Punishing Kiss' nor too conventional like the selection of songs on `Life is a Cararet' where Ms. L tries the Lisa Minelli mantle.
The selection is centered on two very classic Weill songs, `September Song' and `Speak Low', both originally written by Weill for two of his best Broadway shows. This traditional material is joined by two from Brel, `Ne me quitte pas' in French and `Amsterdam' done in French and English. From Bertolt Brecht and Hans Eisler is an obscure English / German song `Ballad of Marie Sanders, the Jew's Whore'. From Werner Heymann and Robert Ziegler we have `Living Without You' which is sung in English.
This is the first Lemper album on which I recall seeing works by Astor Piazzolla. Apparently, Ute has been doing them in concert for quite some time. The two Piazzolla selections `Buenos Aires' and `Oblivion' are sung in English. In the liner notes, Lemper says she would have really liked to sing them in Spanish but it is not a language she knows well and she felt she simply could not do the songs justice without giving a lot of time to learning the language well enough to put the right feeling into the songs. As German is her native language, which I know, I have always been impressed by the interpretation she is able to give equally to both German and English lyrics, and I can really appreciate and respect her reluctance to risk slighting the interpretation of songs in a language with which she is not comfortable. To my ear, neither of these two Piazzolla songs are true tangos, although one can sense the typical Piazzolla Euro/Argentine fatalism in both.
Finally, there are four works by Ms. L herself, all in English. From the liner notes for the album, I gather that Ms. Lemper now lives and works in New York City, as all of her material was recorded in New York with New York musicians, all in a very few sessions, and, like all of her albums, there is a great sense of uniformity in the quality of the performances. Ms. Lemper's songs are selected from a large number of her works that begin as poems. I believe these songs are not quite as soulfully memorable as the Weill, Brel, and Piazzolla classics, but they are definitely out of place, as they do not try for memorable music, but rely on heartfelt storytelling. The title song `But One Day' and `I Surrender' are straight love songs. Her children inspire `Little Face'. `Lena' is based on the mother of Ms. Lemper's Mexican publicist. While one can glide through her other three songs carried simply by the allure of the Ms. L's voice, the lyrics of `Lena' reach out and capture your attention. I simply did not have to read the lyrics of this song to catch all of the references to Holocaust and post World War II history.
I first ran across Ms. Lemper's singing when I picked up her early recordings of Kurt Weill German works, as she started as a Kurt Weill specialist who, to my ears, brought something new to the traditional Lotte Lenya gravel voiced interpretations. I have reveled in all the new material Ms. Lemper has taken on without abandoning for long her European Marlene Dietrich / Edith Piaf inspired style.
Ute Lemper fans will find more of everything we find appealing in her work. I also recommend this to anyone who likes female vocalists in general. Much more substance than the run of the mill diva and even a bit more genuine than Ms. Streisand.
Free Music Review: "On the Weill side"
Hit: 5 Stars
According to the liner notes, this album, which was recorded in New York ("where nothing is the same"), is Lemper's response to the events of September 11 (the World Trade Center is visible in one of the photographs). Perhaps that accounts for her inclusion, at the beginning, of "September Song," a song she has recorded before but which serves here as the perfect umbrella for an otherwise motley assortment of tunes, including four that are self-penned. There are no American songs, as such, although both Weill compositions were written for Broadway, but most are rendered in English, often with new lyrics, as in the Piazolla selections, by Lemper herself. I can't help wondering whether her decision to write her own material as well as to include two Jacques Brel numbers, both covered elsewhere by Scott Walker, may be the fruit of her collaboration with Walker on "Punishing Kiss," a masterpiece of its kind but not really representative of what Lemper does best. Whatever their inspiration, the four new songs are easily the freshest things on this album, and the most immediately engaging, representing a culmination in Lemper's search for material that is both pop-inflected and worthy of inclusion among her international repertoire. The Heymann/Ziegler compostion, "Living Without You," also falls into this category and would make an excellent single. The more I listen to this ablum, the more I like it, at the same time that I am impressed by its artistry. No pretension here, and that's amazing on an album that includes Lemper's own "words inspired by" Bertolt Brecht. "But One Day" is a watershed in the constantly evolving career of one of the world's most challenging and creative artists.Free Music Review: cabaret goddess strikes again!!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
i was first introduced to the work of ute lemper as a manager in a music store in NYC. "illusions" was my first taste of that heavenly voice and since that day i have followed her career withintense pleasure. in this age of celine dions' and sarah brightmans' it is so appealling to be in the musical prescence of what i personally consider a master of her craft.....this woman can do it all: sing (in various tongues no less!!!), act
and now with the release of "but one day" write personal, involving music that takes you to a totally new level!!! ute's
style and approach make me yearn for a seat in some dusky weimar-
era berlin cabaret drinking absinthe and watching the world pass by with all the ennui i posess.......
Free Music Review: Challenging
Hit: 3 Stars
This is a record that I bought because I was intrigued by the cover. I had no idea what I was getting. I'm a big fan of the jazz singers and standards.Her voice is tremendous.
The songs are where the challenge lies. You've almost got to concentrate to hear what makes this music special. It doesn't just grab you, like for instance Frank singing "Fly Me to the Moon".