Lisa Engelken

Caravan

Pity young jazz vocalists. Finding a way to be relevant to people of their generation while remaining true to jazz’s traditions presents a major challenge. Peers who might otherwise be inclined to listen to jazz are likely obsessing over Amy Winehouse’s latest meltdown or grooving on Jill Scott’s new album.

There was a time when a solid cover of Ella Fitzgerald’s 1938 hit “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” would be enough to prove the merits of an aspiring jazz vocalist, but that’s just not going to get the job done in 2011. Lisa Engelken, a native Kansan currently based in San Francisco, gets it.

That’s probably why she covers Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” on her brave jazz album “Caravan.” She knows better than to goof on the ’80s rock hit. Engelken treats it with reverence even as she turns it inside out. Foreboding guitar riffing accentuates Engelken’s elastic reinvention of the chorus. A winning display of imagination and freedom, her radical interpretation is what jazz is supposed to be all about.

Engelken is an equal-opportunity innovator. Hoary jazz standards like the title track receive the same fresh approach. “Caravan,” usually treated as an up-tempo Latin burner, is transformed into an elegiac dreamscape.

These tricks work because Engelken usually sings like a conventional jazz vocalist, while her unusual arrangements ensure that the musical backdrop stays fresh. Even when the instrumentation is entirely traditional, the musicians convey a knowing edge.

Trombone and clarinet are featured on “Just One of Those Things,” for example, but even then Engelken and her band exude the sense that they listen to Radiohead and Erykah Badu during their downtime.

Engelken also knows what all too few jazz musicians understand: Repetition gets old. While anchored by the constant of Engelken’s rich voice, every song on “Caravan” contains different textures and conveys different emotions.

She sounds completely at home on the classic Brazilian samba “Canto de Ossanha.” On a smooth reading of “Winter Moon,” she’s as cool as Julie London (the original Diana Krall).

An innovative take on Freddie Hubbard’s “Red Clay” is meant to be the album’s centerpiece. Shortly before the trumpet legend died, he signed off on Engelken’s new lyric. It’s a recipe for a dry academic exercise, but the new version is a relaxed and funky joyride.

Only a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Trouble Child” disappoints. It hews too closely to Mitchell’s original arrangement from the classic “Court and Spark” album.

Engelken, who recently performed with a handful of Kansas City’s top jazz musicians at Jardine’s, surrounds herself with adventurous musicians on “Caravan.” The result isn’t just a jazz album for people who don’t like jazz. It’s an exceptional effort by any standard.