Clare Teal: Orsini's Songs

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald Rating: * * * *)

The acclaimed British jazz singer here fronts an acoustic band (with sax and clarinet) which fizzes with ideas on a selection of pop tunes and standards made over into appealing and intimate gallery-jazz (California Dreamin', Blues in the Night, In the Still of the Night) given immediacy by the up-close miking of her breathy but powerful vocals.

She swings (The Way You Look Tonight), pens originals which slot in seamlessly, and generally delivers a follow-up to her popular That's the Way It Is, which confidently confirms her status as one of Britain's premier jazz singers.

At 27 she has absorbed a long lineage but also steps neatly between hip and cool like kd lang and being part of a chanteuse tradition.

Label: Jayrem