What [Gerstein] serves up here is living, breathing Gershwin that doesn’t shy from improvisation and yet retains all the crystal clarity and architectural cohesion of his interpretations of Liszt and Brahms.The result is sizzlin’, sassy and smooth, and Robertson and his St Louis musicians are there every spontaneous step of the way...Gerstein’s music-making is direct from the heart, unsentimental but rich in sentiment.

This is a remarkable album. Berlin-based Kirill Gerstein studied jazz piano at Berklee, and is clearly finely attuned to Gershwin’s idiom. Rhapsody in Blue is heard in Grofé’s lean arrangement and the performance accordingly tight. Gerstein includes an interpolated cadenza in the concerto’s slow movement. The first movement is vibrant and the finale buzzes. Thomas Drake’s trumpet solos are impeccably laid back. Superb booklet notes treat Gershwin knowledgeably and seriously. Stunning.

Gerstein trained as a jazz pianist alongside his classical studies, and it shows: the Rhapsody (give here in its original jazz-band incarnation) comes up as fresh as paint in a performance that sounds as if it's being extemporised after-hours among friends, and the langorous but blissfully unsentimentalised Summertime (with Pink Martini vocalist Storm Large) is irresistible.

The disc gives full rein to Gerstein’s jazz talents in all their liquid, apparently effortless variety. The Rhapsody is heard in a live performance – full of fat, moody brass – of the jazz-band arrangement