Jessica Molaskey - Make Believe (2024) Hi Res

With her combination of jazzy cool and kittenish charm, it's probably safe to say that Jessica Molaskey has entered the realm of "phone book singers," i.e., those who you'd pay to hear vocalizing anything. As anyone who remembers her "Stars and the Moon" from Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World knows, Molaskey made her name in musical theater, and it's those roots she returns to in Make Believe after her previous solo albums covered the Depression era and '50s jazz. That includes chestnuts like "All That Jazz," which though familiar and obvious, still sound great, and representations from Broadway's new generation: Adam Guettel duets on Rodgers and Hart's "Glad to Be Unhappy," Brown arranges a frenetic combination of the Lambert Hendricks and Ross favorite "Cloudburst" and Stephen Sondheim's "Getting Married Today," and Ricky Ian Gordon cowrote with Molaskey "Cradle and All." As usual, husband-guitarist John Pizzarelli accompanies and vocalizes on a couple tunes, and Sondheim's gorgeous "So Many People" is another highlight.