While his considerable development of Jazz Warriors International, both as a programmer-mentor and performer, has taken up a fair amount of his time in the past few years Watkiss reasserts himself here as a recording artist with enviably high standards. Some 27 years after his excellent debut Green Chimneys this new set also focuses more on interpretation rather than original composition, but there is a move away from Monk, Shorter and Billie to altogether more eclectic territory. In their stead come Marley, The Real Thing and Stevie Wonder, as might be expected given the singer’s formative years in reggae and soul, but the inclusion of songs by Gabriel Fauré, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones and The Who also works very well, reminding us that Watkiss did indeed tour with the latter in times past. His central conceptual premise here is to recast these well clothed electric classics in a stripped-down acoustic setting, often with just voice and piano to imbue them with a ‘standards’ sensibility that feels anything but stilted. Indeed the bold re-harmonisation of much of the material, especially ‘You To Me Are Everything’, where the brightness of the original is dimmed towards a more questioning emotional pitch, is as impressive as it is engaging. A timely reminder of how effective Watkiss can be in an intimate, spacious context, this album marks both contrast and continuity with his other work, above all the live loop trickery of his solo gigs, and as such underlines his artistic versatility.