Dalia Valančiūtė recorded twelve standards at the Royal Danish Academy

Dalia Valančiūtė was born in Lithuania and now lives in Copenhagen, where she’s become a regular fixture of the Danish jazz circuit — Charlie Scott’s, Blågårds Apotek, Paradise Jazz, Palæ Bar. In September she recorded her second album, One or Two Things, at the studios of the Royal Danish Academy of Music — twelve tracks, all standards.

A standard in jazz is a strange thing — a song everyone plays, which somehow means it belongs to no one in particular. Valančiūtė doesn’t reach for rare material; she picks the songs you’ve already heard a hundred times and tries to show you what you missed. On her 2023 debut, Open the Door, she was still finding her voice. On this one, she already knows where it is.

Her regular quartet backs her: pianist Laurits Høgel, bassist Mariusz Praśniewski, drummer Jesper Lørup, joined by guest soloists Malthe Kaptain on trumpet and Christian Holm Svendsen on saxophone and flute. Compared to the debut, the new record is groovier, more forward-moving, but still leaves room for storytelling — from the joyous swing of “Nobody Else But Me” to the noir-tinged closer, “Too Late Now.”

Her influences — Irene Kral, Blossom Dearie and Betty Carter — are singers known less for power than for the precision of saying less. The reviewer hears the same restraint in Valančiūtė’s phrasing.

The review also mentions her Lithuanian background, not as the album’s subject but as one strand in the history of the voice. Valančiūtė takes standards sung by generations before her and passes them on in her own voice.