Lucky Star

Royal Academy-trained, an acclaimed music educator for kids, a flugelhorn player and from England, Barbara Snow should not be as sizzlingly hot as this Latin jazz disc suggests. Her vocals are rich, sensuous, elegantly phrased; she pulls off the not inconsiderable trick of singing songs about mulattos and mambo dancing in English. An infectious chachachá beat flows through many of the 14 songs, which take salsa, cumbia, mambo and Afro-Latin rhythms and scrawl all over them with a cool-as-ice jazz signature.

At its best Lucky Star has the swagger and class of David Byrne's Rei Momo. If it has a weakness, it's that she holds back a bit; her arrangements might breathe more if they were a touch looser. Snow has played with Jimmy Somerville, Femi Kuti and The Style Council (which is pretty cool) and has appeared on Jools Holland's Hootenanny (also OK), Wogan and Pebble Mill at One (the less said…) and exudes the flair and adaptability of a seasoned sessionist. Backed by 20-odd jazzers who play at the same high standard, she now gets the spotlight she deserves.