Laurin Talese: The Chanteuse.

Text by Morgan James. Images by Rick Kauffman.

Laurin Talese has a knack for engaging her audience. The jazz sensation can induce a smile from the most cantankerous of listeners. She melts the room with her personality.

“Isn’t she amazing?” beams chart-topping R&B singer Vivian Green. “I put her on both of my past two albums.”

Green gushes as she listens to Talese, her friend and former background singer, after Talese performs at the Kimmel Center.

These days, Talese is finding her talent and infectious personality highly sought after by Philadelphia’s music elite.

An Ohio native, Talese attended the Cleveland School of Arts throughout middle and high school. But she knew that Philadelphia was where she wanted to root her start as a professional musician.

“I remember telling my best friend when we were auditioning for colleges, ‘I don’t care where you’re going. I’m going to University of the Arts in Philadelphia. It’s my place,’” Talese recalls.

One of her earliest friends at the University of the Arts, Adam Blackstone, is producing her forthcoming album, The Glam Suite, which she’s currently recording.

“Adam has the gift of adding the finishing touches and having the track cross over, having it become instrumentally complete,” Talese says. “He definitely exercises his musical directing experiences.”

Blackstone has worked as a musical director on tours for Jay-Z, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. This summer, he’ll tour with Justin Timberlake.

Through Blackstone, Talese became acquainted with recent Grammy recipient, pianist Robert Glasper. Glasper produced the single “Winter,” featured on The Glam Suite.

It’s yet another acquaintance met via the University of the Arts, Eric Wortham, who makes The Glam Suite so, well, Talese. The two wrote most of the record’s songs together.

“There was immediate chemistry,” she explains. “He hears what I hear.”

Talese grew up singing in church choirs but she never felt comfortable in that style. Then she discovered jazz.

“When I found Sarah Vaughan and Chet Baker, I felt so at peace,” Talese remembers. “It made me feel good to sing it. The music reminded me of such a glamorous time. It made me feel glamorous. I felt part of their time.”

The singer is dazzling enough to be part of that era, with sleek, cropped hair, painted red lips and that classic bedroom stare.

Talese lives in West Philadelphia, blocks away from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where she works as an academic advisor. From the Vice Dean to the students, they all encourage her gift.

“Everyone is so supportive of what I do outside of the university,” she exclaims. “They even come to my shows!”

Talese acknowledges that working at Wharton is a “divine complement” to her creative training.

“I’m exposed to things I would never would have seen otherwise, coming from my musical background,” she says.

Still, there are moments the duality of her circumstance trickles to the forefront.

“I enjoy helping students,” Talese says. “But music is my life. Sometimes I think, ‘This is your career. My career is after 5.’”