Ute Lemper, the German-born singer whose repertoire extends from the cabarets of Berlin to tango to Tom Waits, took on the role of composer for her latest album “Between Yesterday and Tomorrow.” Of her 15 U.S. albums, it is the first to feature only her songs.
She had been writing for some time and eventually had a collection that was connected almost cinematically with stories about politics, her youth and places she has seen in her travels. A number of the songs were premiered four years ago at a small jazz bar in New York, where she figured she could get a temperature reading on the material from the crowd.
“I didn’t want it reviewed, but Stephen Holden gave me a great review (in the New York Times),” she recollects over breakfast at the Nice Matin restaurant near her Upper West Side home. “I said ‘OK, it can’t be total crap.’ Then we just started recording.”
And once the recording was finished, Lemper and her partner/producer Todd Turkisher left the music untouched for a year. She had another child and focused on motherhood, reduced the touring and focused on projects that would keep her at home, such as stints at Café Carlyle. The album has been released at various times in different countries over the last none months.
Lemper is performing two shows per night at Joe’s Pub on Nov. 22, 28, and 29, plays Paris Dec. 17-20, and will spend a fair amount of 2009 in Europe and South America.
“I like a little time off,” she says, noting she has increased the number of one nighters she plays and spends no more than two weeks away from New York at any time. “I have had the privilege to live my dream and once in awhile it becomes a job. The best part is always getting onstage, improvising with musicians.”
Lemper, 45, talked about her newly released album, why she loves interpreting the music of Tom Waits and her next record, featuring the words of Charles Bukowski, which is already in the can.

Q: Have you always written or is it something you picked up later in life?
A: I felt it was time. I had four songs on (2002’s) “But One Day…”. Most lyrics I write when I travel. I’m always looking at people. I’m interested in their fate — not faith, in fact the less faith the better. But I need to be at the piano to write music and I have to have an empty house. (“Between Yesterday and Tomorrow”) is a musical painting. It’s a conceptual album. The structures are very honest, almost like movements. Turn around and you see where you lived.