Lushly orchestrated—but quietly daring—standards from the vocalist. What this album of jazz standards and stage classics gets so right (that other standards albums can get so boringly wrong) is that it doesn’t play its source material for sweetness or coziness, instead injecting familiar and, yes, romantic music with just enough bite and mystery to make it come alive. Listen to the moody orchestral preamble (by orchestrator and bandleader Darcy James Argue) to “Lush Life,” which casts a long shadow over Salvant’s perfectly poised vocals (girlish and self-consciously plain one second, virtuosic and rich the next), or Salvant’s careful, clipped handling of “Send in the Clowns,” a song that could easily melt into self-pitying goop. Elsewhere, there’s the theme from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a great version of Sondheim’s loner’s lament “Being Alive,” and choices both expected (“Sophisticated Lady”) and not (Kurt Weill’s “Barbara Song”). Standards, upgraded.