Liane Carroll

Up And Down (Quietmoney)

Jazz singing aficionados in these parts are being spoiled, what with Kurt Elling guesting with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, rising star Gretchen Parlato appearing at Glasgow Jazz Festival and the splendid Rene Marie due at Edinburgh Jazz Festival. But the Americans don’t have a monopoly. Hastings’s own Liane Carroll is major league, and here’s the proof. As the title suggests, this is an album of differing moods, and whether she’s paying rockin’-in-rhythm tribute to Laura Nyro on the opening Buy And Sell, powering through What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life or waxing soulful in partnership with trumpet master Kenny Wheeler on the beautifully toned Turn Out The Stars, Carroll is absolutely on top of her game. Her creativity on a revitalised version of Bobby Timmons’s classic Moanin’ and on the rollicking Witchcraft, with its cheeky reference to Georgie Fame’s Yeh Yeh, borders on the volcanic. Now touching, now exhilarating, Up And Down is flat-out brilliant.

Rob Adams