At a mere 21 years old, Emma Smith has a musical career and performance experience that must be the envy of her peers. From a musical family, she followed her father’s footsteps into NYJO and became its vocal coach at 15. She has appeared at all of London’s leading jazz venues and the London and Cheltenham Jazz Festivals. Now at the Royal Academy of Music, Emma is a member of her mentor Peter Churchill’s Vocal Project. So perhaps it is a surprise that she has waited so long to release her first album, The Huntress, which she launched at a packed Pizza Express Jazz Club last night.

Her opening song, the CD title track, set the tone of the evening. The melody soared and swooped, imaginative lyrics unfolded a dramatic narrative, sung and recited, before releasing into a fine piano solo by Matt Robinson. ‘Stolen Child’ combined Smith’s own lyrics with those of WB Yeats in a pleasing musical setting inspired by English folk music. Her compositions reveal an adventurous mind, prepared to depart from conventional song forms and harmonies and to explore melodic ideas reminiscent of Kenny Wheeler or Norma Winstone, while her treatment of standards can be iconoclastic with an up-tempo Latin arrangement of the ballad ‘Don’t Worry About Me’ and a subtly re-harmonised ‘Old Devil Moon’. Along with Matt Robinson, bassist Tim Thornton and drummer Andy Ball complete a first-class rhythm section, one can that deliver the tempo changes, accurate rhythms, dynamic variations and the driving swing that Ms Smith’s music demands. In exchange she offers plenty soloing space for all three to display their individual musical voices.

Stan Sulzmann, who guests on her debut CD, took to the stage in the second set, his probing sax lines, obligatos and solos the perfect complement to Emma Smith’s vocals. A confident and seasoned performer who engages her audience from the first moment, hers is a career trajectory to watch with interest.

– Charles Alexander

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