Lauren White

Making It Up As We Go Along

Café Pacific

Vocalist Lauren White returns with her fifth album, Making It Up As We Go Along, a follow-up to her 2021 Ever Since the World Ended, which we covered here. White, though not a composer, is a lover of lyrics and spoken words, having worked as an actress of television and stage, as well as producer of the HBO show Homeland. To boot, she is married to a television writer. She has a warm, somewhat smoky voice with great articulation and phrasing. As we described last time, White brings maturity, style, and a natural, irresistible natural charm. She’s the real deal with a no nonsense, unpretentious approach. As such, on Making It Up As We Go Along, she sings about the most common subject in song, love, but gets to the heart of the issues without any touches of sappiness. This approach worked well for vocalist Nicole Zuraitis who just won a Grammy for her 2023 How Love Begins. It’s not that The L.A. based White and the NYC-based Zuraitis are cut from the same cloth in any way; it’s just that there’s recent evidence that such a tact can meet with success.

As she did last time, White convenes with her longtime collaborator, pianist Quinn Johnson, who arranged all but one song on the album. With a wealth of talent to draw from in L.A., White assembled many of the city’s best, familiar names that grace many of the albums from that city that we’ve covered here including guitarist Larry Koones, bassists Kevin Axt and Trey Henry, trumpeter Brian Swartz, reedist Katisse Buckingham, and three who share drummer duties – Chris Wabich, Dan Schnelle, and Ray Brinker. For the first time, White is working with producer Barbara Brighton, Mark Winkler’s go-to producer with an excellent track record for vocalists. White and Brighton, aiming to put a different sheen on the typical love song, chose material from well-known, even mega names such as Stevie Wonder, Bill Evans, Jimmy Dorsey, and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. There’s a tune co-written by Mark Winkler and Joshua Redman but the remaining six are from lesser-known composers such as Ron Boustead and Greek composer Mimis Plessas, to name just two.

Instead of pining for lost love in the opener, Donald Fagen’s “I’m Not the Same Without You,” White revels in her partner’s departure, which has given her a totally refreshed outlook (“I feel stronger than I have in years…I like the days without you.”) Certainly, the Great American Songbook comes into play, and White turns to true affection here in a slow bossa imbued by Koones’ guitar in “I’m Glad There Is You,” penned by Paul Madeira and Jimmy Dorsey. Punchy horns and rollicking piano introduce “Unlikely Valentine,” from L.A. composer and vocalist Ron Boustead, who has built a reputation for clever lyrics. Here two “swingers” are surprised to find a match. In a nice sleight of sequencing the animated swing switches to a melancholy ballad in German Trumpeter’s Till Bronner’s song about an affair, “Our Game,” with a terrific pizzicato run from Axt.  White was inspired by Mark Murphy’s version of the tune. The tone brightens with the standout cha-cha “Tin, Tin Deo,” long associated with Dizzy Gillespie, but composed by Gil Fuller and Luciano “Chano” Pozo. Buckingham struts his stuff with a Rahsaan-like flute solo, over terrific rhythm section work (Johnson, Axt, Wabich).

Winkler wrote the lyrics to Radman’s “Lowercase,” a tricky rhythmic tune with the bass-drum tandem of Henry and Brinker underpinning Johnson’s sparking piano. One of this writer’s favorite vocalists and unparallelled scatter Paul Jost duets with While on Plessas’ vibrant “Vrouhoula,” another feature for Koones in the break. The title track with stellar support from Swartz and Buckingham, penned by Eddie Arkin and lyrics from the incomparable Lorraine Feather, sheds a light on the notion that love, at its best, is a spontaneous endeavor. Koones’ ringing tones set the mood for the brooding Great American Songbook “I Have a Feeling We’ve Been Here Before,” where White considers the pain of heartbreak but insists on trying again.  Stevie Wonder’s mid-tempo ballad “Make Sure You’re Sure,” a tune featured in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever follows before White and Johnson close in an intimate fashion on the Bill Evans ballad “Turn Out the Stars.”

Consider this a three-way collaboration between White, Johnson, and Brighton rendered superbly with this cast of musicians, in support of White’s storytelling.

 

• Jim Hynes

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