Anna Elizabeth Kendrick: In Out Of The Rain

These albums were recorded more than a decade apart by Chicago-based singer Anna Elizabeth Kendrick who uses her middle name, she says, to avoid confusion with another Anna Kendrick, a singer and actress. The first of these sessions, In Out of the Rain, recorded in 2013, consists of a dozen of Kendrick's original compositions; the second, from 2025, is devoted entirely to standards from the Great American Songbook.

Even though she surrounds herself with jazz musicians, Kendrick isn't really a jazz singer, hewing closely to the music as written and taking few liberties with lyrics or the writer's purpose, at least not on the standards. Her own compositions are relatively more free-flowing and prove, if nothing else, that Kendrick is a better-than-average songwriter and lyricist.

Kendrick's mid-range voice is softer on the earlier album; it seems to have acquired a certain edginess in the interim. Whether that is a plus or minus is up to the listener to decide. What is clear is that she is giving every lyric the best she has to offer, even if that won't cause the likes of Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande to lose any sleep.

As a writer she tells a good story, and her lyrics—for example, "If You Loved Me," "Hard to Get," "Mind of My Own," "You Were Right"—come straight to the point and no one need wonder about her rationale. "Glamour Queen" is especially personal, as it expresses a wish to become a celebrity before marrying, settling down and having a family. While Kendrick has a life beyond the music business, she has single-mindedly pursued the dream of becoming a full-fledged singer since her teen years, producing both albums with her own resources, and one can't help admiring that.

The standards on Almost Like Being In Love are well-known, and most have been covered by such household names as Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Bennett, Como, Shore and others, which makes Kendrick's task that much more difficult, as there is simply not much that anyone can add to what has already been sung. Kendrick fares best on the more upbeat numbers, while laboring more to enliven ballads like "I Should Care" and Irving Berlin's "What'll I Do?"

Still, Kendrick is doing the best she can with what she has, which is a pretty decent voice and a love of music that is clearly evident in the price she has had to pay to come even this far.