Emma Smith, Pizza Express Jazz Club - review

Her saxophonist mother met her trumpeter father in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, and grandfather Chris, a top-line session trombonist, accompanied Sinatra, Streisand and Sammy Davis Junior in their London shows. Compelled to listen to Sinatra ballads for hours, she reacted with the rebelliousness of youth, converting his leisurely Don't Worry 'Bout Me into a brisk modal exercise in bland open-fourths.

Pianist Matt Robinson gobbled these up but they were hardly the stuff of inspired scat-singing. Another classic chord progression, That Old Devil Moon, was similarly eviscerated on the album, for no good reason, and all the skill of her drummer Andy Ball and estimable bassist Tim Thornton - "on a good night his fingers bleed" - were required to rescue it. Tenorist Stan Sulzmann's arrival in the second set upped the jazz quotient but diluted this time by a pervasive folk-music ethic.

Lyrics proved Smith's strongest suit. Her songs acknowledged the influence of Icelandic icon Björk - "an amazing woman and a beautiful singer" - and Irish bard WB Yeats, whose poem The Stolen Child (a Story Often Left Unsaid) she adapted for her album.

Both are worthy creators but hardly jazz giants. It's sad to reflect that not only are Ella and Billie long gone but so too later beacons such as Carmen McRae, Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter. To whom can talented young singers now turn?

Emma Smith