Play It Cool.

Play It Cool * Lea DeLaria * Warner Bros. Records 

Sultry, sensual Peggy Lee is hardly a name one would think to connect with self-proclaimed butch dyke comic Lea DeLaria. Yet that's exactly who springs to mind as DeLaria growls and purrs her way through Randy Newman's "Life Has Been Good to Me." It's just one of the ear-opening surprises that makes Play It Cool an exhilarating jazz vocal debut.

Courtesy of her jazz pianist father, DeLaria grew up with bop. And although her comedy is all about going over the top, DeLaria the singer is more concerned with the voice as instrument than as Sturm und Drang. The ease with which she swings is evident throughout, especially on Michael John LaChiusa's "Welcome to My Party" (from Broadway's The Wild Party), where she scats exuberantly against the hot saxes of Jon Gordon and Seamus Blake. It's a sound and a style that descends directly from the lineage of swing and bop songstresses Anita O'Day and Chris Connor--and the laid-back, dry-martini cool of Chet Baker. When she stretches phrases or goes bass on a single word in a booty-shaking "All That Jazz," she's simply another instrument in the band.

Though she delivers a refreshingly restrained "Losing My Mind," it's a more unlikely Sondheim choice, "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," that gives DeLaria what is certain to become a signature song. From a deft handling of the intro, "Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd," she swings into a long glissando line with "swing your razor wide, Sweeney / Hold it to the sky." It's scary! And a thrilling proclamation of a singer's arrival.

Velez is a New York City-based music writer.