Hot on the heels of Tina May’s outstanding Piaf album comes this long-awaited follow-up to the Tina May Paris Quintet’s Live in Paris (also released on 33 Records). May is on stunning form throughout, from her imaginative grasp of the Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin classic ‘This is New’ to her unerringly affecting take on ‘Dansez sur Moi’. Her vocalese treatment of Dexter Gordon’s ‘Hanky Panky’, the lead-off tune on Gordon’s Clubhouse recorded for Blue Note in the mid-1960s, highlights her super-fine technical control (great work here from tenor saxist Pascal Gaubert). The brace of tracks featuring clarinettist and vocalist Marcel Zanini is very much the icing on the cake, with ‘Tu Veux Ou Tu Veux Pas’ (Zanini’s adaptation of Wilson Simonal’s ‘Nem vem que não tem’) upping the feel-good stakes exponentially. Pianist Patrick Villanueva, with whom May has had an enduring musical relationship of 30-plus years, is a key presence on the date, from his laidback, scenesetting intro to ‘Dansez sur Moi’ to the harmonically luxuriant journey through ‘My Ship’.