RECOMMENDED

Like a fifth-grade boy who’s confused about what to do about girls, a good portion of the indie community seems conflicted about what to think of girls who make slow, folksy jazz music (remember Norah Jones, how equally alluring and dreary her funereal blues was?). It’s certainly difficult to admit to yourself that you honestly enjoy the music that your mother listens to while quilting. Enter Jolie Holland, a Texas gal who’s taken that “jazz/blues club” template and made it sonically palatable to someone under 35. Holland’s last record, “The Living and the Dead,” was artful, downright gorgeous in sections, and even included a wave of distortion in one tune. Holland’s voice remains the glue that holds her arrangements together—it’s playful when the song calls for it, crooning at times, but never insufferably so, occasionally slipping into her native Texas drawl for the country-influenced tunes. Is it easy listening? Sure, but even easy listening is allowed to be a little challenging sometimes. (Andy Seifert)

October 14 at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, (773)525-2508, at 9pm. $15.