Veronica Swift’s professional destiny was never in much doubt: daughter of jazz singer Stephanie Nakasian, who toured with Jon Hendricks, and top-drawer bebop pianist Hod O’Brien, she was honing her vocal chops long before she recorded her debut album aged just nine. Since then her career has eclipsed those of both her parents'.

This collection is her sixth, and on it her avowed aim was to free herself from the constraints of jazz and go ‘transgenre’. She has achieved that in spades, with a dizzying mixture of musical styles spanning the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries (though oddly enough there’s nothing from the present one): ‘I Am What I Am’ (not to be confused with Popeye’s theme song – it’s from the 1980s stage musical La Cage aux Folles), mashes up Ella Fitzgerald-style scat with JS Bach; ‘Je Veux Vivre’ takes an operatic aria and gives it the Hot Club de France treatment; ‘In the Moonlight’ renders the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ with yowling Brian May-style rock guitar from Chris Whiteman, massed Freddie Mercury-style vocal harmonies, strings and horns. To drive home the point, she also includes Queen’s ‘Keep Yourself Alive’.

The album is a monumental statement of ambition, which Swift’s growing army of fans will no doubt embrace with fervour.