walking upstream…
Laufey
sourcesTIME — 'Laufey Is Bringing Jazz Traditions to a New Generation' · NPR Fresh Air — 'Laufey was an odd fish in native Iceland. Now she's a jazz-pop star' (transcript) · Wordplay Magazine — Laufey on Ella Fitzgerald 'sounding like a cello' and Chet Baker singing 'like a trumpet' · Classic FM — Laufey on her mother the violinist and grandfather's violin teaching · Genius — Laufey on how Ella Fitzgerald inspired 'From the Start' · GRAMMY.com — Laufey's Grammy Awards and nominations
Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir is an Icelandic-Chinese singer, cellist, and songwriter from Reykjavík, raised on classical training — her mother a violinist, her grandfather a violin teacher at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music — and on her father's jazz records, where Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, and Billie Holiday first pulled her toward vocal jazz. She fuses that mid-century sound with contemporary, diaristic pop songwriting and orchestral string arrangements, turning bedroom-written songs about crushes and heartbreak like 'From the Start' and 'Valentine' into global, TikTok-driven hits. Her albums 'Everything I Know About Love' (2022), 'Bewitched' (2023), and 'A Matter of Time' (2025) have each won or contended for the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, making her jazz's most unlikely Gen Z crossover star.
the sound in question
2022
ValentineLaufey
walk the tributaries ↓
Chet Baker1950s · Cool jazz / West Coast jazz / Vocal jazz
Laufey has said Baker is 'probably the reason I started creating my own music, and writing my own music,' calling him 'just the greatest musician of all time' and explaining the pull of his singing this way: 'he plays the trumpet, so it's like, he sings like a trumpet' — a held-back, breathy delivery she says she leaned into more on her own records. The homage is explicit on 'Just Like Chet,' and she's said she nearly recreated the crescent-moon cover of 'Chet Baker Sings It Could Happen to You' for one of her own album covers.
listen: upstream & heresource: GRAMMY.com — Laufey on Chet Baker as 'the reason I started creating my own music' ↗
1954
My Funny ValentineChet Baker
2022
Just Like ChetLaufey
listen forPlay Baker's 'My Funny Valentine' — the almost-spoken, behind-the-beat phrasing, like he's underplaying a trumpet solo with his voice — against Laufey's 'Just Like Chet,' built around melancholic cello lines under trombone and trumpet. Listen for the same held-back cool in her phrasing, never pushing past a murmur.
Ella Fitzgerald1950s · Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Swing
Laufey calls Fitzgerald her 'first inspiration': 'I think Ella Fitzgerald was the very first singer that I really felt that I vocally resonated with. I think she just sounded like a cello' — a direct link back to Laufey starting cello at eight and wanting her own voice to sit in that same register. She's traced 'From the Start' explicitly back to that fandom, and points to Fitzgerald's orchestral songbook sessions ('Ella Fitzgerald, with the orchestra') as the model for pairing a light jazz vocal with a full string arrangement rather than just a rhythm section.
listen: upstream & heresource: Fresh Air transcript mirror — Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, mother/grandfather quotes ↗
1959
Someone to Watch Over MeElla Fitzgerald
2023
From the StartLaufey
listen forCue Fitzgerald's 'Someone to Watch Over Me' from the 1959 Gershwin Song Book — the voice floating unhurried on top of the strings, never over-singing the melody — then play 'From the Start.' Listen for the same restraint: a light, precise, almost cello-like tone riding the orchestration instead of fighting it.
Billie Holiday1930s–40s · Jazz / Vocal jazz
Asked on NPR's Fresh Air which singers she vocally resonated with after naming Fitzgerald, Laufey answered 'same with Billie Holiday' — part of a father's-record-collection story she's repeated elsewhere, describing being drawn to 'that type of era of mid-century singing,' naming Holiday alongside Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Julie London, Peggy Lee, and Doris Day. Holiday's guarded, aching phrasing on ballads is the clearest reference point for the quieter, more vulnerable side of Laufey's catalog.
listen: upstream & heresource: Fresh Air transcript mirror — Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, mother/grandfather quotes ↗
1941
God Bless the ChildBillie Holiday
2023
DreamerLaufey
listen forSet Holiday's 'God Bless the Child' — the way she lags just behind the beat and lets single words carry the weight — against Laufey's 'Dreamer.' Listen for the same instinct to hold a vulnerable lyric back rather than belt it, guarding the emotion instead of announcing it.