As the Croydon-born singer, songwriter and pianist Anthony Strong illustrated on his 2009 debut, Guaranteed, he has the capacity to completely reinvent standards. His brilliantly imaginative reworking of the Kern/Hammerstein classic ‘I Won’t Dance’ was one of the debut’s standouts, and this five-track EP shows Strong making further creative forays into the standards repertoire. ‘It’s Delovely’, ‘Tea For Two’ and ‘Cheek To Cheek’ all crackle with new life. Best of all is ‘For Once In My Life’, an exhilarating tour de force which sees Strong pulling out all the arranging stops. It’s as fine an account of this song as I’ve heard. Whether this means that his own songwriting has taken a momentary back seat or not – the debut was predominantly co-written with Guy Mathers – remains to be seen. I do hope not, as the Strong/Mathers bonus track ‘Going Now here ’ which owes something to Bill Evans’ ‘Waltz For Debby’ offers a reminder of just how good this songwriting team is.