COLTRANE JAZZ FEST 2019: Laurin Talese

Laurin Talese plays Saturday at the Coltrane Jazz Fest.

“I’m with my voice all the
time,” Laurin Talese says. “I can’t put my instrument down.”

Talese knew she loved
singing since she was in elementary school; she was always surrounded by
singers and always drawn to vocals. After training in a variety of genres,
performing backup and in ensembles using R&B and soul music, she found
herself firmly within the world of jazz.

“I love that it’s a melting
pot,” Talese says. “You can hear all this melting of different genres in one
macrogenre and I think that’s beautiful.”

Talese will perform alongside
the North Carolina All-Star Band performs under the direction of Mondre
Moffett. The singer-songwriter mentions the collaborative process as a distinct
aspect she looks forward to sharing with audiences.

“It’s always exciting when
I’m able to utilize [my voice] in a different way,” she says.

While the performance
itself is a collaboration, Talese finds each time she sings onstage to be
collaborative in a way. She maintains the power and emotion of her voice by
drawing on the energy and wants of the audience she sings in front of.

After the release of her
first album, Gorgeous Chaos, in 2016,
Talese found a contrast between writing and presenting her work. While she
loves to connect with others, crafting a song takes alone time for the
vocalist.

“It’s a very personal,
internal process for me when I’m writing,” she says.

Even with the juxtaposition
in the practices, Talese notes a link between the two. For her, they both act
as spiritual experiences, jazz acting as a vehicle to further amplify the
feeling with its rich history and variety of influences.

“Spirituality, in addition
to it being a respect and an admiration and a reverence for a higher power or
the universe or whatever everyone has for themselves,” she says, “is also
upholding a truth or honesty in yourself. That’s spiritual too, in my opinion.”