Full of tracks that are like teaching masterclasses instructional and exemplary skeletally arranged the scatting on 'East 32nd Street' is one joy here. Jo Lawry, a singer from Australia who lives in the States, recently on tour in Ireland and the UK and who is the custodian of a pingingly pure very strong voice and a reservoir of improvisational ideas to draw on, is accompanied in lively fashion by drummer Allison Miller quite Paul Clarvis-like stylistically. The Pat Metheny and Vijay Iyer bassist Linda May Han Oh provides conversational support on the stately Frank Loesser Guys in Dolls medley involving 'My Time of Day' that then changes into 'I've Never Been In Love Before.'

Lawry doesn't do ''soft singing'' like Chet - it's more fleshed out, far less dreamy, and not afraid to be full of joie de vivre without floating off into random giddiness.

There isn't really anyone to compare her voice with directly but a little of the timbre of Rosemary Clooney's jumps to mind and yet that's no way near either. But given there is a strong Frank Loesser connection on Acrobats listen to Clooney sing Styne and Loesser's 'I Don't Want to Walk Without You' however much it is in a different idiom why not for a wider angle. Bassist Oh, on this studio album recorded in New York City in late-2021, is superb on 'If I Were a Bell'. Lawry's approach is more inventive than her fellow Australian Sarah McKenzie although both have brilliant voices. The title track is a fine original by Gian Slater and a song that contains an unusual spread of oblique melody, playful lyrics, that takes a while to get used to but then stays for the long haul. L-r: Allison Miller, Jo Lawry, Linda May Han Oh. Photo: Erika Kapin