Recorded before an invited audience at NYC's Power Station Studios, this third Resonance release from Polly Gibbons is one of those rare dates where every element – performance, song list, personnel – appears to be perfectly balanced. The album was recorded in 2018, something of an annus mirabilis for the singer with a residency at NYC's Birdland and appearances at both the Montreal and Pittsburgh International Jazz Festivals just some of the highlights. Horace Silver knew the power of an infectious melody and Gibbons certainly knows how to get a song's message across, and these two forces come together forcibly on the stunning opener, ‘Permit Me to Introduce You to Yourself’. Backed by a remarkable band whose instinctive feeling for space and dynamics shines through every bar, and with arranging duties shared between Tamir Hendelman and the singer's long-time musical compadre, James Pearson, Gibbons then soars spectacularly in the seductive modulations of the Al Jarreau/George Duke collaboration, ‘Good Hands Tonight’. In addition to achingly beautiful interpretations of Prince's ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, with just piano and organ providing the sorrowing accompaniment, and Benard Ighner's ‘Everything Must Change’, there's a fine brace of originals from Gibbons and Pearson, the transfixing torch song ‘If You Had the Chance’, plus the rambunctious title-track. An album to relish.