Rachel Z has quite the CV. She worked on Wayne Shorter’s Grammy-winning Highlife album and was co-writer of the Grammy-winning ‘Tokyo Blue’ with saxophonist Najee; has two musical professorships; and has worked with Marcus Miller and Terri Lyne Carrington, not to mention Peter Gabriel.

She’s not a jazz purist: her trio’s 2003 album First Time Ever I Saw Your Face opened with a wonderfully hard-edged and propulsive cover of Nirvana’s ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ featuring some magnificently steely Tyneresque lines from Z herself. Continuity is provided between that release and the new album by the fact that the first single from Sensual was a cover of the Foo Fighters’ ‘These Days’ (Dave Grohl, leader of the Foo Fighters, was also in Nirvana, of course).

The sound of the disc, in keeping with the project title, is warm and generally laidback, although there’s still space for some great runs from Z on tracks such as ‘Save my Soul’. It’s all beautifully played by Z and her trio, which features Omar Hakim, Z’s husband, and also no stranger to jazz-rock crossovers, having played with the likes of Sting and David Bowie.