For an enterprising artist such as Erin McKeown, an album of obscure swing covers rotating around playfully sinful motifs was just the next step in an 11-year career of spunk, smarts and ingenuity.
With a free performance at Amoeba Records in Hollywood on Thursday and a full set at the Hotel Cafe on Cahuenga Boulevard Friday, the 29-year-old multi-instrumentalist will give Angelenos a taste of her new album, “Sing You Sinners,” and of the versatility and charisma that has defined her music thus far.
“Sinners,” which McKeown also produced, features an assortment of lesser-known standards from the ’30s and ’40s, including a smoky version of Fats Waller’s “If You a Viper,” and “Coucou,” a gem from jazz guitar legend Django Reinhardt.
There are also some staples thrown into the mix, but as is typical of McKeown, she pushes the limits of jazz as a genre and makes the songs her own, with a calypso swing version of “Paper Moon” and the stripped sexy “Something’s Gotta Give”.
“There are a lot of old songs that most people already know and which I really love and have been playing for years,” McKeown said. “But I think it’s important to make new art instead of recycling the same things. That’s something that I’m always trying to do, is just to keep putting new stuff out there.”
The album’s greatest feature is in the chemistry between McKeown and her backing trio, whose parts dovetail together with savvy solos.
The album, recorded over four days in a live-in studio in Massachusetts, comes off sprightly and alive ““ what McKeown describes as “like downing four shots of whiskey with your friends at a bar.”
Although “Sinners” is McKeown’s first album of covers, let alone of only jazz music, it fits snugly into her catalog, which is peppered with jazz, swing, Tin Pan Alley and the like.
The album also mirrors McKeown’s original work with its acute musicianship and understated lyrics which, unlike many singer-songwriters’ songs, embrace harmonies without homilies attached to them.
“You can say a lot when you’re being subtle or sly,” McKeown said. “That’s why we write poetry instead of just taping a note to the refrigerator door. It’s more interesting when things are a bit hidden. That’s what language is for.”
McKeown’s musical foundation was spotlighted on her first two releases, “Monday Morning Cold” and “Distillation,” both of which she recorded while still an ethnomusicology student at Brown University. Each is consciously sparse and deliberate, filled with playful anecdotes, literary allusions and a portentous sense of debauchery.
At the time of the releases, because of her dexterous guitar playing and sociable stage presence, McKeown was often likened to folk icon Ani DiFranco and pigeonholed as solely a folksinger.
“When people come to my shows or really listen to my music, they realize that … I do a lot of different things with my music other than play folk,” McKeown said.
“There’s nothing wrong with folk music, but I’m interested in exploring a lot of other styles.”
More recently, McKeown funneled her sound toward an electro-pop medium that is ready to rock out when needed, as seen on her genre-defying 2005 release, “We Will Become Like Birds.”
“I think it’s just part of my personality to push the boundaries,” McKeown said. “Some of that has to do with me being a woman in this industry. … A lot of female guitar players focus more on their voices and not so much on their guitar playing. But it’s important for me to be good at all aspects of what I do.”
In addition to an album of originals in the pipeline, McKeown has teamed up with equally inimitable female musician Allison Miller to form Emma, an experimental jazz-electronic duo. Miller will also back up McKeown on drums for her Los Angeles shows.
“It’s great to be in a band where it’s not mine or hers but equally the both of ours,” McKeown said.
“It also gives me a chance to extend songs out. I usually live in a two-and-a-half to three-minute little world with regards to my own music so it’s interesting to play songs that are a bit longer.”
McKeown has a reputation of affability to her fans almost as much as she does in her attention to her craft, often sticking around after shows, personally posting blogs on Myspace and responding to her fans’ e-mails.
Through these connections, she explores bigger issues at hand which artists arguably have a responsibility to address, from art’s role in our culture to politics.
For McKeown, anything less would be short shrift.
“With my music specifically or with what I say in interviews or my interactions with fans, it’s important to push the line where it needs to be pushed,” McKeown said.