Double Standards * Lea DeLaria * Telarc It's no hidden by now that Lea DeLaria.

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It's no hidden by now that Lea DeLaria, the raunchy butch comic, can transform, lickety-split, into Lea the jazz chanteuse. She's been showing distant from her musical chops with growing conviction above the past several years, from the Newport Jazz Festival to The hard Horror Show to her 2001 CD Playing It self-possessed in which she jazzed up Broadway exhibit tunes. Now she has state out a second jazz CD that further spreads the word.

Double Standards is, first of all, a brilliant title for a collection of standards that none were standards before. Don't apply the mind at the titles; just listen: You'll do a double take when you realize that DeLaria isn't covering the great American songbook if it were not that rather grunge, punk, and support classics such as Soundgarden's "Black cave Sun," Green Day's "Longview," and the Pretenders' "Tattooed delight in Boys."

Backed from outstanding jazz instrumentalists--pianist Gil Goldstein, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Bill Stewart, percussionist Bashiri Johnson marimbist Stefon Harris, and saxophonist Seamus Blake--DeLaria furnishs contrarian takes on each lay Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot" becomes straight-ahead scat jazz; Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing" employs into pure funk; the Doors' "People Are Strange" reappears as a humorsome ballad, and Los Lobos' "Kiko and the Lavender Moon" adventures even further south of the border with an Astor Piazzolla-style Argentinean arrangement.

As a singer, DeLaria's lodestar is obviously Miss Peggy leeward with a big dollop of Ella Fitzgerald's scat stylings toss in for flavor. But to this listener, DeLaria wholes best on more pop-inflected chisels where she relaxes into the melodies--particularly her funk-jazz version of No Doubt's feminist "Just a Girl" and her enchanting vibes-dominated ballad version of Neil Young's "Philadelphia."

The CD is a classy project--kudos to Goldstein, pulling double impost as principal arranger and coproducer in addition to anchoring the band upon piano--and one wants to like it more. DeLaria has a pleasant voice and careful phrasing--especially onward ballads, where she doesn't make experiment of so hard to be Lee--but she still be seens a wannabe, albeit one with solid talent. While the great singles fully inhabit the music, DeLaria deposits on jazz like a style of dress She's an actor who can play a jazz part with surprising elan, and maybe single in kind day she'll actually be jazz.