The best standards tell a story, one that is unique enough to ring true while remaining universal enough to join the ranks of those timeless songs that live on from generation to generation. On her striking new album Get Out of Town, French-American vocalist Laura Anglade weaves a grander, cinematic story of love and self-discovery from eleven classic songs that unfold through evolving scenarios and shifting locales.
Due out May 3, 2025 via Nettwerk/Justin Time Records, Get Out of Town furthers the remarkable evolution of one of jazz’s most captivating rising stars. Anglade released her acclaimed debut, I’ve Got Just About Everything, in 2019, followed in 2022 by Venez Donc Chez Moi, a Juno-nominated duo outing with guitarist and frequent collaborator Sam Kirmayer. On her enthralling third album she’s joined by a stellar all-star line-up featuring guitarist Peter Bernstein, pianist Ben Paterson, bassists Neal Miner and Neil Swainson, and drummer Adam Arruda.
Anglade’s storytelling gifts come to the fore through the unfolding narrative of Get Out of Town. The album’s songs, many of them more obscure entries in the Great American Songbook sagely curated by the singer, were certainly never intended to tell a cohesive story. Nor did Anglade choose the repertoire with a sequential scenario in mind; the fact that a plotline so organically emerged is testament to her instinct for a resonant lyric.
“The tunes came together chronologically as if this had always been my intention,” Anglade says. “I chose the songs individually, but they fell together and by the time the recordings were done, a single story line began taking form.”
The album begins with “April in Paris,” which Anglade introduces a cappella – the young protagonist is alone, looking forward with both excitement and trepidation to a new life ahead. She inhabits the character in her vocal, breathing life into an experience she can relate to even if she hasn’t lived it exactly.
“I’ve been reflecting recently on the parallels between acting and singing,” she explains. “Each art form is an extension of the other. Singing, like acting, is rooted in human expression, in the power of a good story. I never pursued musical theatre growing up, but I’ve found that the deeper I get into this music and grow as a person, the more each song feels like performing a role. I visualize each song as if it were a monologue in a film, and somehow shape-shift myself into the part. That led to this album having a distinct beginning, middle and end.”
Anglade’s character sets out in search of “A New Day, A New Life, A New Love,” in a winsome version of Tommy Wolf’s tune gilded by Bernstein’s elegant guitar filigrees, and settles in “Manhattan” (a la Rodgers and Hart by way of Blossom Dearie). The first of two tracks featuring a trio with Paterson and Swainson, “Manhattan” captures the wide-eyed feeling of awakening in a new city, each moment a new discovery as this unfamiliar metropolis gradually takes on the comforts of home.
Throughout Get Out of Town, Anglade often reimagines her material with a different feel or tempo than is typical for each piece. A product of her vivid musical imagination, it works with the maturing narrative to encompass the complexities and contradictions of life. “I agree with my longtime friend, collaborator, and producer Sam Kirmayer that you can always have an idea for an arrangement in your head, but once you step into the studio the result will often be completely different. I think it’s important to stay open to trying new ideas in the moment. Naturally the story is always the driving force, so if a song has quite a sad lyric I’m not going to make it uptempo. But I like to look for underlying sarcasm or lean into an unreliable narrator, to leave some room for reinterpretation.”
Take “I Wanna Be Loved,” typically rendered as a ballad (see, for instance, Dinah Washington’s swooning, string-drenched 1962 version). In Anglade’s hands it becomes buoyant, almost giddy, an inexperienced young woman’s imagining of first love rather than a mature yearning.
The first indication that our heroine has encountered some obstacles on her road to happiness, “I Don’t Mind” marries an upbeat optimism with hard-won wisdom. Anglade splits the difference between the elegant Duke Ellington original and the resigned Bob Dorough version through which she discovered the piece. Emotions bubble up into a breezy scat solo, words being insufficient to fully capture the song’s conflicting sensations.
Anglade interprets the dizzying “This Can’t Be Love” with an off-kilter sense of humor, as her preconceptions fly out the window when faced with the reality of romance. The love story continues with “Gentleman Friend,” where Anglade takes a wry turn over Miner’s ebullient bass line, leading to a conversational round robin for the band. The absence of a drummer turns from setback to strength on a gravity-defying “Stairways to the Stars,” blues-tinged and dreamy as Anglade’s voice floats light as a cloud.
The brisk “You Hit the Spot” suggests that all is well, at least until an ominous final chord that sets the stage for the wry farewell of “I’m Gonna Laugh You Out of My Life.” A mesmerizing duet with Bernstein, the song’s intimacy hints at the overwhelming cycle of emotions as the narrator confronts the end of her relationship with anger, suspicion and denial. Beginning as a simmering piano ballad before breaking out into a blistering pace, the title track brings the tale to a close with the promise of another new day, another new life, another new love in another new town.