“Speak slowly/My eyes are so bleary/I guess I’m young but I feel so weary”

A night after canceling their first New York City show due to illness, Zooey Deschanel cheekily apologized by way of self-deprecation, poking fun at her ailment with “Black Hole,” a dreary tale of loneliness belied by a chipper melody, twangy slide guitar and jaunty pace that is one of ten original songs on Volume One, her new collaboration with M. Ward.

Certainly she looked the picture of health; exuberant, and unapologetically effervescent, wearing an uncontained smile as she tapped a tambourine cheerily against her thigh. But at the end of the song, she turned her back to the audience to reach for something behind her, then returned holding up a large sign with a handwritten message: “Hello New York.”

She’d lost her voice the day before and in order to give it all during the performance, she had to silently woo the crowd between songs. The effect was in fact as charming and as quirky as Deschanel herself, who produced various signs (“Hi,” “Thank You,” and “You Look Great, You Really Do!”), held her heart in a mock swoon at the applause, and jumped up and down like an excited school girl before launching into “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”

But perhaps more importantly, her muteness presented her with the challenge of winning over a first-time audience without the safety net so many new musicians fall into – witty stage banter to fill up the 90 minutes. Instead, Deschanel was left with charm, which she oozes, and of course the sweetly crafted compositions she recorded last year with M. Ward.

The songs on Volume One are almost without exception playful: “I’m just sitting on the shelf” she sings on “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” teasing a lover to come sweep her up; and deliciously retro - “I Was Taking a Walk” is pure 1950s swing. But to say Deschanel is simply imitating art would be not only wrong, but a huge underestimation of her talent; she is genuine in her inspiration from the music of her forbearers. Her voice is buttery smooth, at times haunting when she evokes the distant past on Smoky Robinson’s 1962 hit “You Really Got a Hold On Me,” and she effortlessly harnesses country, blues and jazz.

Though she’s better known as an indie actress with roles in films like Almost Famous, Deschanel grew up singing in church choirs, and has been singing with the jazz cabaret act If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies since 2001. She and M. Ward first recorded a duet together in 2006, and their chemistry lead to the full-blown collaboration, which they recorded retro-style using as few machines as possible. A year has passed since they laid down the tracks, and when they play live, the songs take on the perfection of practice, and the comfort of easy improvisation.

For his part, M. Ward remains mostly mum, and at first, I wonder why he didn’t simply take over emceeing responsibilities, but as the show went on it became clear that despite his omnipresence on Volume One, the grammatical order of their moniker is intentional. Though he has several shining moments on electric bass, his aim seems to be to shine that spotlight on Deschanel.

–Julia Clarke