When’s the last time you played a jazz album and discovered an entirely new experience from a song you grew up with and thought you knew everything about? I’m talking about my response to Kathy Ingraham’s performance of the Aerosmith classic “Dream On” that opens her new album, Jazz Dreams. The track sets the tone for an album full of unexpected delights. It’s one of the most original albums out in a longtime. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

As for the genesis of Jazz Dreams, Ingraham was stimulated by two events. First, she watched an old film, 1943’s Heavenly Music, which won the 1944 Academy Award for best short film. “That was the first seed to take songs to demonstrate the film’s theory that a great melody can transcend the genre for which it was originally created,” Ingraham says. “The next experience was when I watched a show that celebrated Howard Stern’s birthday party in 2014 where Aerosmith’s leader Steven Tyler played a great version of their hit ‘Dream On’ on piano. I felt a little spark. He sang a jazz riff in the middle of the song. I thought maybe I could do the same with it. That led to the whole notion of doing contemporary songs with a jazz slant.”