Conceived, recorded, mixed, and mastered over an eight-day period in August, this stealth release from Kurt Elling pairs him with the remarkable US pianist, Sullivan Fortner. Together, these willing musical funambulists create a world which you’re happy to lose yourself in. A huge hit in the 1940s for the vocal quartet The Mills Brothers, Elling and Fortner’s take on Johnny S Black’s ‘Paper Doll’ starts in free time, eases into a deliciously slow pocket, before hitting a jaunty stride approach just before the halfway mark.

Previously recorded by Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter on their 1997 Verve album, 1+1, the duo creates something truly magical in a transfixing take on Dutch pianist and composer Michiel Borstlap’s ‘A Memory of Enchantment’, to which Elling appends new lyrics. From the 2009 debut album by folk-pop group Mumford & Sons, ‘After the Storm’ exudes elegiac insight from every bar.

Fred Hersch and Norma Winstone’s ‘A Wish (Valentine)’, is transmuted here into a touching duet featuring the ever-wonderful Cécile McLorin Salvant. ‘Things Ain’t What They Used to Be’ (recorded by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross on their 1960 album, Sing Ellington), possesses a pleasing rhythmic bite, while the duo’s powerful reimagining of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Ana Maria’ is as fine an account of this remarkable work as I’ve heard.