(chanson, cabaret) [CD] Ute Lemper - But One Day - 2002, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Ute Lemper doesn't just sing, she *performs*. If ever there was a woman who was born to sing, it's Ute Lemper. Her latest album, "But One Day," is quite possibly the best thing she's ever done. She serves up a marvelously sung collection of songs by Weill, Brel, Piazzolla, Heymann and Eisler, AND, in the nicest surprise of all, Lemper herself. She can now add "songwriter" to her list of talents, as she sings five songs of her own, a first for her. Ute's own compositions, including "I Surrender," and "Lena" (featuring Laurie Anderson), are excellent, emotional songs that perfectly showcase what she can do at the mike. And, as Lemper has proved many times before, she also knows how to wrap her silky voice around anything by the likes of Weill, Brel, or Piazzolla, like "Speak Low," "Buenos Aires," and "Amsterdam." The album's arrangements and production are both sparkly, and a perfect match for Lemper's commanding, sultry pipes. With her blossoming songwriting talent, "But One Day" shows tremendous growth for this already-established German diva. It's arguably her best album to date, and her most accessible. If you're interested in checking out the amazing Ute Lemper, this is a wonderful place to start.
Review by William Ruhlmann
Ute Lemper, who has devoted much of her recording career to resurrecting German interwar songs, particularly those of Kurt Weill, and who included such Weill successors as Nick Cave and Elvis Costello on her last album, The Punishing Kiss, here adds her own name to the songwriting credits while continuing to find ways to explore her favorite music. This is a collection of bleak songs, influenced, one can't help thinking, by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks this immigrant New Yorker mentions in her liner notes. (The album's photographs, meanwhile, are dominated by images of the Brooklyn Bridge, including one shot in which the World Trade Center is visible.) The tempos are slow, the arrangements lushly string-filled, and Lemper, a vocal chameleon, sings in a breathy, breaking voice, beginning with Weill's "September Song." Her own contributions, which can be termed "art songs" in the sense that they dispense with such conventions as choruses or easily hummed melodies, are full of images of despair expressed in a charmingly broken English. No matter how far afield she goes, Lemper is never much removed from Weimar Germany, as "Lena," a song about a haunted Holocaust descendent living in Mexico, shows. Her most conventional original song is the title track, a lovelorn lament. The songs of Jacques Brel and Astor Piazzolla are brought in to expand on the sense of anguish and depression, and at the end Lemper returns to an old favorite, Bertolt Brecht, for "Ballad of Marie Sanders, the Jew's Whore," in which a German woman is excoriated for associating with a Jew. Lemper then closes with her own reflection on Brecht, a comment equally applicable to the troubled world situation of 2002. But One Day... is an artist's telling reflection on her own heritage and her view of the post-9/11 climate.

Ute Lemper Vocal
Laurie Anderson Violin
Frances Andrade Violin
Levine Andrade Violin
Irvine Arditti Violin
Alexander Balanescu Violin
Howard Ball Violin
Elena Barere Leader
Fenella Barton Violin
Stuart Brooks Trumpet
David Bucknall Cello
Martion Burgess Violin
David Burrowes Cello
Chris Dean Trombone
Phillip Eastop Horn
John Elliott Sousaphone
Paul Eshelby Trumpet
Mick Foster Sax (Tenor)
Crystal Garner Viola
Chris Haigh Violin
Mary Hammann Viola
Sophie Harris Cello
Paul Hart Violin
David Heiss Cello
Jeanne LeBlanc Cello
Vince Lionti Viola
Rosalyn Lishak Violin
Pete Long Sax (Tenor)
Jon Morton Violin
Eugene J. Moye Cello
Peter Oxer Violin
Geoffrey Palmer Violin
John Parricelli Guitar
Frank Ricotti Vibraphone
Peter Scherer Bass, Keyboards, P'iri, Piano
Mark Shulman Cello, Guitar
Paul Socolow Bass
Galina Solodchin Violin
Skúli Sverrisson Bass
Donna Tecco Violin
Michael Hart Thompson Horn
Todd Turkisher Drums, Engineer, Percussion
Rutledge Turnlund Bass
John Underwood Viola
Hugh Webb Harp
Pete Whyman Clarinet, Sax (Alto), Sax (Soprano)
Steve "Syco Steve" Williams Bass
Robert Ziegler Keyboards, Moog Synthesizer, Organ (Hammond), Piano