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Judy Wexler on 'Dreams and Shadows'

From the evidence on her new second album, Dreams & Shadows, Judy Wexler can sing almost anything.

Wexler can be slow and sad without being goopy. She can straight-out swing, and she can take a classic jazz riff and keep riffing, even with words. Not bad for someone who says she didn't necessarily grow up with jazz.

"My whole life, I've been involved with music and studying it," Wexler says. "But with the jazz idiom, it's actually not something that I grew up per se with. It's something that I came to later in life."

Well, sort of.

"Well, actually, I was [listening to jazz]," she said. "I lied. My dad had music on all the time ... and my father was — he loved to sing. He was always singing. And my mother and he would dance in the living room -– put on music and dance. And that was very joyful."

Susan Stamberg spoke with the jazz vocalist about the tunes on her new record.

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