Lauren Desberg: Out For Delivery
Lauren Desberg

Brimming with personality, Lauren Desberg's blessed with one of those instantly recognizable voices that sounds fabulous whether heard alone or multiplied into creamy harmonies. Raised in LA and now ensconced in New York, she's a singer who combines the freshness of a youthful sensibility with the classic feel of jazz vocal styling. Her delivery blurs the boundaries between old and new, and on this extremely likable collection, Desberg expresses a genuine love for traditional jazz while also showing a natural connection to contemporary styles. As a teenager growing up in California, she attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) and sang with the school's jazz ensembles, after which she attended Boston's Berklee College of Music and in 2012 issued her debut EP Sideways. Three years later, her first full-length, Twenty First Century Problems, followed and now four years after that Out For Delivery.

Produced by Drew Ofthe Drew and Will Wells and recorded in 2017, the recording tickles the ear with a myriad of unusual touches, the sample of a rewinding tape recorder, for example, bridging tracks one and two and the sound of a ringing phone landing smack dab in the center of “Come With Me.” Out For Delivery's the kind of album where every one of its melodically rich songs (co-written by Desberg and Wells) offers pleasures of various kinds, the greatest of them her singing. The mix enables its every nuance to be heard with maximum clarity, from her acrobatics on “Yes Unless” to the subtle vibrato-tinged twang of her girlish delivery in “Something Wrong With Me.” Each song's elevated by an ever-stylish execution by Desberg that never feels anything but natural.

She's got a wonderfully talented supporting cast with her, namely saxophonist Braxton Cook, pianist Kris Bowers, drummer Jonathan Barber, guitarist Andrew Renfroe, and bassists Ben Shepherd (electric) and Russell Hall (upright). See the smoky solo Cook adds to “I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter,” for instance, and the superb accompaniment by Bowers throughout. Barber, who last year distinguished himself with his exceptional debut album Vision Ahead, is a stylist with skills to burn, and the inventive touches he brings to his beats make a huge difference to the album. His playing exemplifies the high level of the jazz drummer but is also informed by hip-hop and other styles (check out “Falling Dominoes” to hear how neatly he segues between a funky shuffle and jazz-styled shadings and “The Sweetest Sounds” for the clever hiccup he works into the drum pattern during the closing seconds).

With Bowers subtly enhancing the performance and Renfroe spiking it with a tasty solo, “The Way You Feel Inside” opens the album with the cool breeze of her voice, Barber driving the song with a double-time groove and Desberg lifting the song with a soaring lead and luscious harmonizing. That glorious paean to self-acceptance is followed by the blues-drenched “Yes Unless,” whose upright acoustic piano trio backdrop provides a classic foundation for Desberg to emote against. It's so easy to be captivated by the swoon of the album's lead single, “Something Wrong With Me,” that one could overlook the seriousness of its thematic focus on the crippling effects of self-doubt and insecurity. Other issues arise elsewhere, from free will and reincarnation to unrequited love.

Her affection for classic tunes is exemplified by the inclusion of 1935's “I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter” and 1962's “The Sweetest Sounds,” both benefiting from alluring performances by Desberg. A duet between her and a multi-tracked Renfroe, “How Could I Have Pain” affords a wonderful opportunity to appreciate how special a vocal talent she is. On the advice of Bowers, she augmented the core material with four interludes that, while they aren't ineffective, could easily have been turned into full-fledged songs. Though it's a mere thirty-seven seconds long, “Hold On” nevertheless casts one back to a ‘40s nightclub, Desberg winning over an appreciative crowd with her sultry coo and her band's brushes-driven swing. With a hint of bossa nova powering its guitar-laden swing, the minute-long “Come With Me,” on the other hand, comes and goes too quickly, as does the exuberant closer “The Choice.” Fleshing out the interludes would also have increased the length from its current half-hour to something in the thirty-six-minute vicinity, still a concise recording by full-length standards. As album weaknesses go, however, it's hardly a crippling blow, Out For Delivery otherwise an extremely flattering presentation of Desberg's vocal and songwriting gifts.

July 2019