JUNO-Nominated Jazz Singer Laura Anglade Announces New Album ‘Get Out of Town’ + Shares “Stairway to the Stars”

January 17, 2025 BY Emma Orland

Today, the JUNO-nominated, French-American jazz singer Laura Anglade is pleased to announce the follow-up to her dazzling 2022 LP, Venez donc chez moi, with Get Out of Town, due out May 23rd via Nettwerk/Justin Time Records. After a string of singles like “Manhattan,” “A New Day, a New Life, a New Love,” and “April in Paris,” Anglade shares “Stairway to the Stars.” Laura’s delicate and distinct vocal delivery highlights her masterful range and control. The mesmerizing climax will send chills down your spine. 

Laura explains: “This tune is probably the one I am the most proud of, at least in terms of vocal strength. I really sang my heart out here. This song has always resonated with me. Notably, I take pride in contributing to arranging the ending. I told Ben [Paterson] and Neil [Swainson], I wanted it to sound like I was physically climbing up and up and up, a climactic ascent, to the clouds. I have fallen in love with arranging. Describing a feeling to the band, and allowing them to interpret and bring your vision to life; it is creative, and there are no strict rules. The song itself carries hints of fantasy, requiring a collaborative effort to get it right.”

Listen & Share “Stairway to the Stars” Here:
https://youtu.be/glT7ya0zl3I

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. 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 a 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 storyline began taking form.”

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 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 “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.

Laura Anglade – Get Out of Town

Nettwerk Music Group/Justin Time Records

Release Date: May 23rd, 2025

Track List:

April In Paris

A New Day, a New Life, a New Love

Manhattan

I Wanna Be Loved

I Don’t Mind

This Can’t Be Love

Gentleman Friend

Stairway to the Stars

You Hit the Spot

I’m Gonna Laugh You Out Of My Life

Get Out of Town