In An Auto-Tuned World, Rachael And Vilray Offer Something Sweetly Human

Watching Rachael Price and Vilray Bolles perform at The Ford in Los Angeles last night, you couldn’t help but think: the world needs more of this.

In an era of algorithmic playlists and auto-tuned precision, Rachael & Vilray offer something increasingly rare—music that’s witty, warm, and unabashedly human. Their latest album, West of Broadway, showcases a duo who’ve mastered the art of making the past feel urgent and the sophisticated feel accessible.

What I love is the humor in songs that cut with a precision that modern pop rarely attempts. Take “Is it Jim?”, where a woman earnestly (like, for real) believes her boyfriend has transformed into a tortoise and gamely tries to make the relationship work, treating his glacial pace as a minor personality quirk. Or “My Key to Gramercy Park,” a character study of a bitter, isolated rich person convinced everyone’s desperately scheming to access their exclusive Manhattan park—when really, they’re just alone and, duh, no one cares.

You might mistake these for novelty songs. But they’re actually instant standards built on sharp psychological portraits and wrapped in gorgeous melodies (almost all are written by Bolles).

It’s the harmonies, though, that stop you cold. Price and Bolles blend voices with the kind of effortless intimacy that suggests hundreds of hours of practice and an almost telepathic musical connection; they’ve been singing together for nearly a decade. There’s a throwback sweetness to their sound—like stumbling into a candlelit supper club in 1959, or discovering your grandparents were actually the coolest people you never got to meet. It’s nostalgic without being precious, rarefied without being stuffy.

At The Ford, they made it all look easy. Which, of course, means it isn’t.

Their six-piece band was impeccably tight despite having rehearsed together only that afternoon—a testament to the caliber of musicians they attract and the clarity of their musical vision.

Bolles introduced a new song, “Forever Never Lasts,” as an homage to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s famously hot-and-cold romance, with lyrics that skewer any couple trapped in a toxic cycle: “This year I’ll love you, next year it’s hate. I think that’s great, don’t you dear? The only thing we know that’s true forever is forever never lasts for very long.” It’s commitment reframed as comfortable dysfunction, and the audience howled in recognition.

Rachael & Vilray: A Partnership Forged in Jazz School, Perfected Over Time

In her other gig as the lead singer for Lake Street Dive, Price brings jazz phrasing to pop-soul with a calm, room-melting alto. Born in Perth, Australia in 1985 and raised near Nashville, she grew up singing in the Voices of Bahá choir led by her father, composer-conductor Tom Price. At New England Conservatory she met the musicians who would become Lake Street Dive in 2004, creating a sound where swing sensibility meets hooky songwriting.

She and Bolles met as jazz students at the same conservatory in 2003, but didn’t start working together seriously until 2015. Vilray had taken a break from music for day jobs and was recovering from a hand injury when he began playing solo sets at a small Brooklyn bar. Price sat in. Soon after, she asked to join him for a gig; he handed her one of his originals and she assumed it was a standard (and why wouldn’t she?). That miscommunication became the foundation of their sound.

Rachael & Vilray’s music draws on the language of 1930s–40s swing but without defaulting to covers. Most of the material is Bolles’s, written to feel plucked from an earlier era but always with a modern spin. Consider another new song, “Is a Good Man Real,” which sounds like something Cole Porter might have written if he’d been navigating dating apps: “Does he try to remember what his old lady said? / When he sleeps in on Tuesdays does he straighten the bed? / Once he’s had three martinis he’ll let you take the wheel / Oh, is a good man real?”

The chilly night at The Ford may not have had the warmth and intimacy of their last LA show at the Troubadour, but it was still a delight. A night of swing that never felt like nostalgic cosplay or like guys in a gazebo playing for spare change.

An Opening Act Worth Arriving Early For

The night opened with a lovely short set by Kate Kortum, a 23-year-old breakout jazz vocalist from Houston becoming known for her warm, distinctive sound that blends bebop, blues, the Great American Songbook, and musical theater. Her accompanist, Jake Nalangan, is an extraordinary talent on keys—moving effortlessly from barrelhouse and boogie-woogie to straight-up cocktail jazz. But perhaps most remarkably, Nalangan ended the show at 8:30 and somehow made it off stage, across town to LAX, and onto an international flight by 10 PM.

Now that’s cool jazz.

Rachael & Vilray’s tour continues through November 18.