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. In Get Out of Town, Laura Anglade weaves a grander, cinematic story of love and self-discovery from eleven classic songs that unfold through evolving scenarios and shifting locales.

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.

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 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 interpretation.”

Take “I Want to  Be Loved,” typically rendered as a ballad (see, for instance, Dinah Washington’s swooning, string-drenched 1962 version). In Anglade’s hand, 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/Billy Strayhorn 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 “Stairway 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.

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