Album: Nelli Rees

Jazz Noir, Zone 7

Despite having originated in the bars and bordellos of New Orleans's Storyville district the better part of a 100 years ago, jazz has been all but denuded of the sexuality that its name connotes. The clean-up probably began sometime around the bebop era, when critics started referring to the work of Bird, Diz, Bud and Monk as the black classical music of America; but by the turn of the millennium, this once fervid, erotic form had completed its journey from groin to heart to head, transformed into the dry academic discipline epitomised by Wynton Marsalis – a music played by musicians who knew the history, knew all the modes and methods, and could probably play the pants off their predecessors, but couldn't for the life of them re-connect jazz with its lubricious bodily origins.

The Russian-born singer Nelli Rees may not be able to tell her pentatonic scale from her mixolydian, but she has sexuality to spare, and a keen awareness of its place in jazz. Although most hardcore jazz buffs would probably dismiss her debut as an ersatz version of the form, there's plenty of fine music here, pushing away at the envelope separating jazz from pop, funk and techno. "Don't Worry" recalls the Herbie Hancock of "Rockit", with deep-house synth riffs tempered by cool horns; a skittering techno drum programme makes for an intriguing contrast with Rees's yearning vocal on "The Boy from Ipanema"; and a sly trip-hop groove makes "Struggle Dance" sound like Portishead fronted by a predatory femme fatale, Rees's frosty assertiveness adding a dominatrix edge to her vocal.

The same applies to a version of "Use Me" which condenses Bill Withers' anthem of erotic devotion to a slow, rolling pelvic grind: even her submissive mutter mid-song conveys the distinct impression that you're the one being given no choice in the matter, that in using her, you're being used yourself. That's even clearer in "Body Greed", where liberal use of the vocoder effect makes her sound like a sultry android on the pull, the music hovering around her voice like a fog of desire.

Elsewhere, "Ice Cold", a portrait of a beautiful but unreachable boy, is set to an appropriately glacial jazz-dubscape, little more than a few chill piano chords over crushed ice, while "Small Black Dress" finds Rees bringing a touch of the Blossom Dearies to her reflections on the importance of allure. With the accompaniment throughout sensitive to each song's requirements, and Rees fronting them with confidence and character, Jazz Noir has an appeal all its own. It may not be serious enough for some, but whose problem is that?