When a teenage Polly Gibbons surfaced in UK clubs in the mid-00s, she sounded promising but liable to be lost in the throng of cool young female singers who had heard of Ella Fitzgerald. Ten years on, and Gibbons has proven herself a versatile artist who can switch from an emotionally subtle Cleo Laine-like purr to a soul-gospel wail in a blink, and she has a growing authority as a co-composer with Ronnie Scott’s jazz club pianist James Pearson. Originals like the smart and light-stepping title track, or the muscular, soul-belting You Can’t Just …, highlight Gibbons’ composing strengths, with the latter’s R&B groove slammed home by a snappy horn section. On Thomas Dolby’s Ability to Swing she balances a laid-back jazz feel with high-end soul power, suffuses her own poignant Midnight Prayer with gospel nuances, and rips into Aretha Franklin’s Dr Feelgood with searingly implacable relish. All these genres are familiar, and the stylistic diversity has a faintly CV-presenting air, but Polly Gibbons is unmistakably a class act, getting classier fast.
