Barb Jungr - Shelter From The Storm (2016) [HDTracks]

While driving down some motorway last year I realised I wanted to make an album in New York. I wanted to work with US jazz musicians, tap into a different water and sing a different song. It was a dream. I was on a motorway somewhere towards the fens. So, when I shared it with Philip and Kim of Linn Records and they said: "Why not?" and "Let’s do it!" a ball started rolling and I had to learn to balance on top of it – and fast – because when I shared all of that with my US manager Gail Boyd, she said: “Why not do it with Laurence Hobgood?” And I said: "Wow! Are you kidding me? That man's fabulous." Then she brought Laurence Hobgood to see me perform in NY and when we chatted after the show, he appreciated what I was doing and said lovely things, and I thought he was the bees’ knees. So we started hanging out, and drank a lot of coffee, and wrote some things, and suddenly we were in a glorious joyful collaboration and the ball had become a transatlantic magic carpet! And here it is.
The upshot of all of that: this recording. Along with the trio, I'm inordinately happy to have found another Englishman in New York, Michael Olatuja who is on bass, and to round off the transatlantic seesaw, another American, the wonderful Wilson Torres who is on percussion.
We recorded in Sear Sound, up there in midtown, on a hot and humid weekend in early July, when it was SO hot that the local Starbucks ran out of ice! And it was hot inside that studio too - but in a good way. So the tracks were laid down and then, in London, the wonderful photographer Steve Ullathorne and I made a trip to a secret park to make the photographs, and Greg had been along at the recording session and he'd clicked us in situ in all of that. And the songs? Well, this material is all about hope – and dreams – we need so much more of them now. What the World Needs Now is Love, and Shelter From the Storm, and some Sisters of Mercy – the memory of what might have been with Woodstock – plus our own songs, which we're continuing to add to, over the coming year.
So come with us. Come ride our camel toward the oasis. I hope you'll enjoy the journey, and come hear it live, and leave smelling the grass, hearing the sea, feeling the warm breeze on your face, and whether your feet be in the gutter, or not, seeing the stars. --Barb Jungr