Zara McFarlane: Arise review – jazz sensibilities highlight a class act

(Brownswood)The Mobo-winning London singer Zara McFarlane has sounded like a class act for longer than a star-fixated world might realise, and her recent output suggests that her intuitions unerringly guide her emotions toward appreciatively consensual recognition. Arise may be too long on genre music and short on improv for jazz hardliners, but for many it will be a fascinating perspective on an African Caribbean family lineage shared by McFarlane and her gifted drummer and producer Moses Boyd.