Ute Lemper brings life back to the cabaret

Her voice, an extraordinarily supple instrument that nimbly shifts from a roar to a purr to a howl, instantly commands attention.

Whether she’s drawing long, sinuous phrases from a standard by Kurt Weill or bringing palpable sensuality to music of Astor Piazzolla, singer Ute Lemper revels in vivid, unabashedly Expressionistic sound.

But it’s the brains behind the instrument -- the ability to find interpretive meanings and historical context where others have not -- that ultimately distinguishes Lemper from her peers.

Anyone who doubts it can check out her large discography, which ranges from the gritty drama of Weill’s “The Threepenny Opera” to the Jazz Age sensibility of “Chicago” (London cast recording) to the pop art songs of Nick Cave and Elvis Costello (among others) on “Punishing Kiss.” Add to the equation the Weimar Republic decadence of “Berlin Cabaret Songs” and the hothouse atmosphere of music of Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich on “Illusions,” and Lemper clearly has emerged as a genre-shattering cabaret artist.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Lemper, whose mercurial art has been applauded in symphony halls and swank nightclubs alike, eventually would try her hand at writing her own songs.

Like many great interpreters before her -- from Billie Holiday to Frank Sinatra -- she has attempted to create music even more closely attuned to her voice and her attitudes than the repertoire she has recorded.

The result is “But One Day” (Decca), an unflinchingly personal recording that juxtaposes acknowledged masterpieces by Weill, Piazzolla and Jacques Brel with her own sharply idiosyncratic songwriting.

Perhaps it’s an understatement to note that Lemper’s tunes, for which she penned the winding melodies and brooding lyrics, are not likely to turn up on top-40 radio any time soon.

“I can only write what I need to write; if I would go for more commercial goals, it just wouldn’t feel right,” says Lemper. “For me, contemporary music should have poetry that is not easy, not kitsch. It should include conflict. It should have the gorgeous harmonies of [French Impressionist] Maurice Ravel, a hint of [German Expressionist] Arnold Schoenberg, and then it should have a groove, a certain vibe. It should be sexy. It should transport you.

“This is my vision, at least, what I would want to hear when I push on the radio.”

Certainly that is what Lemper fans, as well as the uninitiated, will encounter when they hear “But One Day,” the album’s title song -- as well as other tracks -- proving that contemporary songwriting can be literate and elegant. Elsewhere on the disc, Lemper’s “Little Face” weds the harmonies of Claude Debussy with imploring, half-whispered melodies, and her “I Surrender” contemplates the pain of romance as searingly as anything written in the last decade.

All of this music, as well as her radical reinterpretations of masterworks such as Weill’s “September Song” (with melodies stretched to the breaking point) and Piazzolla’s “Buenos Aires” (sung with all the sensuousness the title implies), points to an artist who seems to revel in risk-taking.

“Actually, I am somebody who has not a lot of self-confidence -- I am full of doubts,” says Lemper. “But because I always like to improvise on the piano and create certain harmonic sequences and then invent new melodies, I decided, ‘Let me see what I can do myself.’

“My songs turned out a little epic -- they’re quite long. They’re not meant to be a typical ballad, but I hope they have heart.”

Plenty of it. And when Lemper’s perfervid vocals are bathed in strings, pushed forward by languorous jazz rhythms and brightened with street accordion and saxophone cries, there’s no denying the power of her work.

Moreover, considering the political message that long has radiated through virtually everything Lemper sings, it’s no wonder that her music has taken on an even sharper edge since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“The spectre of war seemed to haunt these songs,” wrote critic Kevin Bourke in the Manchester Evening News last month, “whether they had been penned by her beloved [Bertolt] Brecht and Weill, whether they were more contemporary songs written for her by the likes of Nick Cave and Tom Waits, whether they came out of her raging passion for tango and the songs of Astor Piazzolla, or whether they were written by Lemper herself from her latest album.”

Indeed, the seriousness and intensity of Lemper’s music may make her precisely the singer listeners need to hear right now. For Lemper offers not escapism from our times but direct confrontation with them.

“Everybody’s freedom was so intruded by those attacks,” says Lemper, who lives in the United States and Europe. “I have to take a plane, but I don’t like this at all. I feel completely terrorized. There is a fear in all of us; we don’t know what’s going on.

“But at this time, these truthful words of Brecht are more powerful than ever. Forget about all this Marxist nonsense that people interpret into him. There is so much truth in his analysis of society and the power of money and good and evil.”

Lest anyone think that a Lemper performance is a dry discourse on society’s troubles, it’s important to note that she probably could make the recitation of the telephone directory a riveting experience.

As much actor as singer, as expressive physically as she is vocally, Lemper essentially transforms the tradition of 1920s German cabaret to a post-modern era.

“One hand resting on fashion-model hip, she sings languidly, allowing the lyric [of a Nick Cave song] to stun the house into uneasy silence,” wrote critic Caroline Sullivan in the Guardian, after Lemper’s performance at Royal Festival Hall in London. “Her ability to pour herself into a tune while keeping it at arm’s length creates a tension that keeps the crowd rapt. For all her talk of passion ... there is something dispassionate about Lemper. ‘Outside I’m fire, inside I’m ice,’ she sings at one point, pretty well summing up her strange appeal.”

Lemper, in other words, merges many sensibilities -- some old, some fresh -- into a performance manner considered eccentric by some, inspired by others but dull and pedantic by no one.

“I try to sing music that’s about conflicted emotions, music that never looks for heroes but for antiheroes, morally opposed heroes,” Lemper says. “I sing songs by outsiders.”

And now writes them, as well.

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Ute Lemper

Where: Conga Room, 5364 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

When: April 30-May 2, 9 p.m.

Price: $37.50 to $85

Contact: (323) 938-1696

Howard Reich is an arts critic at the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune company.