Singer Angela Hagenbach is on the phone, talking about her new CD, when an e-mailed report reaches her:</p><p> &ldquo;JazzWeek says it&rsquo;s No. 3 most-added, No. 5 increased airplay, No. 2 chart-bound.&rdquo;</p><p> The ambitious disc, &ldquo;The Way They Make Me Feel&rdquo; on the Resonance label, is being heard coast to coast. And she&rsquo;ll be celebrating the release Friday with her band at Jardine&rsquo;s. </p><p> The project, focusing on lesser-known songs by Johnny Mandel, Henry Mancini and Michel Legrand, features Hagenbach&rsquo;s voice in front of a top-flight West Coast rhythm section and a string ensemble. It&rsquo;s quite a departure for the jazz contralto, who has made five earlier CDs on her own label. And the new disc came about in an unusual way. She explains:</p><p> &ldquo;Maybe four or five years ago, the producer, George Klabin, was working with another singer who wanted to sing the song &lsquo;Street of Dreams.&rsquo; She asked him to find as many versions of the song as he could. That&rsquo;s not the way I would have approached it! But he came across my version, and he said he was knocked out by it. </p><p> &ldquo;He contacted me, and had me out for some performances. And we&rsquo;ve stayed in touch.&rdquo;</p><p> After a while, Klabin asked her to record for his label. &ldquo;He already had the concept and the title,&rdquo; she says. And the proud owner of Amazon Records found herself in the unexpected situation of recording for someone else&rsquo;s label &mdash; &ldquo;I said to myself, &lsquo;Just sit back and be the artist.&rsquo;&ensp;&rdquo;</p><p> Klabin suggested that she pick from a pool of 17 tunes. &ldquo;Surprisingly, about 14 were in minor keys.&rdquo; Hagenbach picked about a dozen, and added a selection of her own: &ldquo;I like to get a composer&rsquo;s songbook and learn the melody as it&rsquo;s written, and not be overly influenced by other singers,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;In the process of doing that with Johnny Mandel, I came across &lsquo;Cinnamon and Clove.&rsquo;&ensp;&rdquo; It became the CD&rsquo;s opening track. </p><p> Hagenbach got together with her regular Kansas City pianist, Roger Wilder, to work on the tunes. Meanwhile, Klabin had pianists Tamir Hendelman and Kuno Schmid working out the atmospheric arrangements heard on the recording; Hagenbach was comfortable with his choice, because she&rsquo;d worked with both of them before. </p><p> The sessions went smoothly, with Hagenbach&rsquo;s warmth and wit coming through the big arrangements. </p><p> Not a bad way for the Kansas City singer to celebrate her 20th year in jazz. </p><p> Hagenbach grew up the seventh of eight children, hearing music from her father, a saxophonist, and her older siblings. She had experience as a trombonist, backup singer and model before committing fully to music. She joined a gospel choir in the mid-1980s, &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s where my lead voice came out,&rdquo; she says. And rediscovering Sarah Vaughan in 1989 &ldquo;was like a religious experience&rdquo; for her. &ldquo;She can dip real low, and soar &mdash; and I thought, I can do that!&rdquo;</p><p> So Hagenbach got serious, downright scholarly, about jazz. She began hanging out at jam sessions and taking private lessons from Luqman Hamza and Carol Comer. About this time, Danny Embrey came back to town, &ldquo;coached me on how to be out in front,&rdquo; and helped her get a band book together. </p><p> Her entry to the jazz scene was remarkably smooth. Just a few months after she became a regular at jam sessions, a connection from her time in the fashion industry proved valuable: &ldquo;I ran into the woman who was food and beverage manager at the Ritz Carlton. They&rsquo;d put on fashion shows there, and I&rsquo;d known this lady for years. She asked me what I was up to, I said I was singing, and I got a gig! Four nights a week at the Ritz Carlton, with Russ Long, Gerald Spaits and Ray DeMarchi!