AE: How did you select Soundgarden over, say, Nirvana or Pearl Jam?
LD: We did do a Nirvana tune that didn’t make it on the disc, but that doesn’t mean it won’t make it out in another form. I know it has been pitched to a couple television shows and things like that.

AE: You also enhanced the funky vibe of Jane's Addiction's “Been Caught Stealing,” and you even left the genders of the original song in tact. Is that important to you?
LD: I always sing the lyrics. It’s not about the singer, it’s about the song. I’ve always felt that. Whatever song I sing, I always leave the gender in tact. So if the song is sung to a woman, I’m singing it to a woman. If the song is sung to man, I’ll sing it to a man. It’s just my personal choice and it always has been.

AE: One of the luxuries of not singing American songbook standards on this disc is that you are performing songs by living songwriters. Have you gotten any feedback from them regarding your renditions of their songs?
LD: I have, actually. The “Been Caught Stealing” feedback is actually unbelievable. They were talking about putting me on the Lollapalooza tour, and then it went. I’m telling you, I’m cursed (laughs). I got a lovely little note from Deborah Harry which basically said that she was jealous, that she wished she had thought of doing it for her jazz record, which was really nice. The song “Alliance,” I got a wonderful letter from Robert Wyatt. My girlfriend is the pianist in the Robert Wyatt band, and she had worked with him for years and she is also my musical director when I tour in Europe, so she plays for me as well. I didn’t come to the song that way, the song was brought to me by the producer, I had never heard the song. I called her up and said, “Hey, I got this Robert Wyatt tune,” she started laughing. She was like, “which one,” because he is a very strange song writer and I said, “Aliance.” She was like “that’s a perfect tune for you.” I am curious to hear what Chrissie Hynde will say about “Tattooed Love Boy.”

AE: Or Patti Smith.
LD: Of “Dancing Barefoot”? Please, I am the biggest Patti Smith fan of all time. You have no idea what a huge Patti Smith fan I am. I still listen to her all the time. I know it's my record so I can say it, but it really swings like mad. The woman who arranged it, Mary Ann McSweeney, who is a bass player I use quite often, did it as a tribute to Charles Mingus; sort of a take-off on a really famous baseline of his, “The Haitian Fight Song.” It works really well with the tune; I’m very pleased with it. This particular record, more than the last one, looks at a variety of styles of jazz. There’s fusion of this record, there is weird music, total swing, funk. These are the sounds of jazz.

AE: In addition to the new disc, are there any upcoming movie, television or Broadway musical appearances in the works?
LD: Absolutely. I am currently in an off-Broadway show. I am doing Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the Classic Stage Company. We started previews this week. If you know Happy Days, you know it’s a really weird play--well, it’s Beckett. That’s the one were the woman is buried up to her waist in the first act in the mound and then buried up to her neck in a mound in the second act and its a comedy (laughs). I am very pleased with it.

There are three musicals in the pipe. One is a musical based on the relationship between Lorena Hickock and Eleanor Roosevelt and its all three characters: Franklin, Eleanor and Lorena, its a lovely little piece, it’s brand new. There is a piece called The Drowsy Chaperone which is set to go to Broadway next season that I’m in. Another piece, called Alley Cats, which is supposedly going to have me and Lily Tomlin, and that’s going to be in Vancouver at the end of the year.

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