A chance meeting with pianist and composer Simon Wallace, who at the time was working with songwriter, poet and performer Fran Landesman, led to Nicki Leighton-Thomas’s acclaimed debut album Forbidden Games, which was released in 2001 on Candid Records. One Good Scandal reunites the singer with Wallace 20-plus years later to further explore the Wallace/Landesman canon, and the results are every bit as assured, engaging and astute as the debut. Traversing jazz, blues and pop, highlights include album opener ‘Semi Detached’ (“When some of our loves are semi destroyed, we make it OK by quoting them Freud/We play little games and never get scratched, it’s easy because we’re semi detached”), the knowing ‘Overture To Corrupt and Deprave’, one of several songs that makes its recording debut here, the ludic ‘Hyde Side Blues’ (“Throw away those inhibitions, set your fancy free”) and the very first song lyric that Landesman wrote, ‘This Little Love of Ours’, with music by Tommy Wolf.

There’s also a beautiful piano-vocal version of ‘The Girl You Can’t Forget’, which Landesman penned specifically for and about Leighton-Thomas, who delivers it with her customary lustrous timbre, rhythmic subtlety, and telling eye for detail.