When was the last time you went to a cabaret show and didn’t know a single song the performer sang?  A hard question, right, since most cabaret shows we see feature a healthy sampling of the classic American Songbook or pop-folk-rock songs with which we’re pretty familiar.  But not so with iconoclast Jasper Kump, a performer who seems to be specializing more and more in eclectic and “unknown” material on which he can put his own distinctive stamp.  Following his cabaret debut in 2005 with Sunday in New York as well as Starfish + Coffee a few years ago in 2007, Kump is back with another marvelous show called The Kid that’s filled with undiscovered gems which he’s polished to a high sheen.

Directed with simplicity, and keeping Kump’s patter to a minimum, the award-winning performer Lisa Asher knows how to showcase a singer to their best advantage and does so beautifully with Kump on The Kid.  Backed by the terrific arrangements of musical director Jeff Waxman which include Bob Green (on guitar, fiddle and mandolin) and Lisa DeSimone (on vocals and various percussion), Kump weaves his way through a series of story songs by composers like Buddy Mondlock, Jude Johnstone, David Wilcox, K.T. Oslin and himself that, while obviously not unknown to Kump, Asher and Waxman, were certainly unknown to me which turns out to be a very good thing, indeed.  And a smart move by Kump.

With his mellow, lyric baritone, and a wide-open face with its infectious smile, Kump is the perfect interpreter for lyrically-driven songs about the vagaries of life that affect us all.  On opening night he seemed to be fighting a bit of a cold but sang through it like a pro, allowing the roughness to add another color to his country-tinged vocal inflections.  From Johnstone’s “Coming of Age,” to Oslin’s “Hold Me,” to Wilcox’s “Rusty Old American Dream,” Kump has found a repertoire that serves him and the audience extremely well.  Can another CD be far behind?  Watch for his return soon.

David Hurst
Cabaret Scenes
September 10, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org