AfterEllen.com: In recent years, people have become familiar with the saga of artists being badly mistreated by major labels, Patty Griffin comes to mind, as one. Like Patty Griffin, you have found a new home where your work is being the attention it deserves.
Lea DeLaria: Well, that’s very nice of you to say. Thank you.

AE: Please say something about your experience with Warner Brothers and your subsequent relocation to Telarc, which is issuing Double Standards.
Lea DeLaria: The music industry is going through a state of flux right now, trying to deal with the free music on the internet and all those sorts of things. It’s not just my label, I mean the state of jazz is in a real scary place and the Warner jazz label just went under. There is no more Warner Jazz, it’s gone. Those of us who were lucky enough to find another home are those of us who made money with our record, it’s that simple. A lot of jazz records do not make money; new jazz does not make money. There are some artists out there who are making money. Most of them are crossover appeal type artists like Norah Jones, who is not a jazz singer. Let me take that back, she is a great jazz singer, she is just not doing jazz on her records. As far as I can tell from Norah Jones, the new jazz is country (laughs). So, those of us that did well we were able to find homes.

It took a little longer for me and that was mostly because Telarc was trying to license the record from Warner Brothers, and they were being ridiculous. I’ll say it out loud, Warner Brothers was being ri-di-cu-lous. Telarc can’t even release in certain markets in Europe because WB did release me in certain markets in Europe and they were asking for as much money as it cost to make the record. They had already made their money back (laughs). Finally, the person who was dealing with this, he was actually fired, I think that was the story, and a reasonable person took over who went, “Of course you can license Lea’s record.”

AE: There was a fascinating article by Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune recently about the way that music retailing has changed, particularly for older music buyers, and how Starbucks has become a force in that area. Kot used new CDs by Madeleine Peyroux and the late Ray Charles as examples. Would you like to see Double Standards for sale in Starbucks?
LD: That would be fantastic. Absolutely and its exactly the right market. I talked a little bit in the previous question about the state of jazz. I bring this up because I just recently was the featured vocalist for the 50th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival tour. This is a big deal tour, we are going into big halls, we’ve got Cedar Walton, Lew Tabackin, Ken Peplowski, we’ve got huge names in jazz, and I’m looking out at the audience and it’s Cocoon 3, baby (laughs)!

The reality is that with this record that I’ve done, Double Standards, I am desperately trying to get people in jazz to realize that they can’t just keep reinventing the same tunes over and over again. Jazz has changed. That’s what Miles Davis and Charlie Parker were all about. This is the music of the college age set, and we’re swinging it. So the people who go to Starbucks are exactly the people that this record was made for. Are you kidding? That would be the greatest thing in the world!