The Dallas-born, New York City-based vocalist Jazzmeia Horn was my one to watch for in the December 2015/January 2016 issue of Jazzwise. At the time, she was a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition. She went on to win the competition, one of the results of which is this outstanding debut on the historic Prestige label. The traits which first impressed me about the singer – her incredible time feel, impressive range and consistently beautiful timbre – are everywhere in evidence here. One of her touchstones, Horn's take on Betty Carter's ‘Tight’ strikes freewheeling scat gold from the get-go, while the constant gear shifts of the Gigi Gryce-Jon Hendricks title track shows the tight rapport between Horn and her musicians. Whether breathing fresh new life into standards such as ‘East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)’, soaring spectacularly on a joyous ‘I'm Going Down’, phrasing ‘The Peacocks’ with an immaculate legato, or charting the narrative ebb and flow of ‘Medley’, A Social Call is one of the singularly most powerful debuts of recent times.