2024 has turned out to be quite the year for vocalist Emma Smith. In September she won Jazz Artist of the Year in the Boisdale Music Awards, and was also a winner in the Jazz Vocalist of the Year category at this year’s Parliamentary Jazz Awards; she's also toured the world with US supergroup, Postmodern Jukebox.

Arranged by Smith and pianist Sam Watts, the classic ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’ from Fiddler on the Roof immediately marks out the vocalist’s remarkable time feel on this new album. Written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn and celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, ‘Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)’ highlights Smith’s exceptional phrasing – whether laying back behind the beat or driving a phrase forward, she makes even familiar melodies sound spontaneous and intimate. Famously sampled by Groove Armada in their late-1990s chillout hit ‘At the River’ (“If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air/Quaint little villages here and there”), there’s an especially seductive take on the classic 1950s pop song, ‘Old Cape Cod’, which channels the same Shirley Horn-slow tempo of ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ from Smith’s 2022 album, Meshuga Baby.

Elsewhere, the quartet brilliantly reimagines Billy Strayhorn’s impressionistic ‘Chelsea Bridge’, crafting a dreamlike interpretation which somehow appears to float in mid-air. A song associated with the Andrews Sisters, whose version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016, Smith signs off with the mid-tempo bounce of ‘Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree’. Recorded at Livingston Studios in Wood Green, north London, the audio boasts a pleasing clarity which perfectly captures Smith’s crystal-clear diction.