Act II is just beginning. It seems a long time since the young British singer Gwyneth Herbert signed a record deal with Universal. Was she going to become the next big thing? Sadly, it all turned sour, and Herbert eventually left the label after recording just one album.

The problem, you see, is that her taste in singer-songwriter material does not easily fit into the jazz category. Listen to the tracks on her recent CD, Between Me and the Wardrobe – which eventually found its way on to the Blue Note roster – and you find yourself thinking of Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian and even the Kinks at times.

But consorting with the likes of the pianist Tom Cawley and the Polar Bear drummer Seb Rochford has allowed Herbert to have the best of both worlds. Her Soho performance was an endearing mixture of poetic introspection and intelligent swing, her immaculate band taking flight on the back of Rochford’s restlessly shifting pulse and Al Cherry’s clipped guitar. Herbert may have been sporting a Fifties-style dress, but this was an unfailingly contemporary set. It may also have been the first time the hallowed club had ever been the setting for a cover of David Bowie’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.

If Herbert has a weakness, it is that her angular and densely constructed lyrics – nobody could be surprised that she name-checks Silvia Plath and Toni Morrison – can become a little claustrophobic over the course of an evening. At the risk of sounding hopelessly old-fashioned, a few interludes from the standard repertoire would surely make a highly effective contrast.

The young cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson made a sensitive guest appearance before and after the interval, and at one point Herbert took to the piano to deliver The Narrow Man, a touchingly ingenuous love letter to her boyfriend. Earlier, on one of her long-time favourites A Little Less, she cut everything down to essentials in a wild, ecstatic dialogue with Rochford’s drums.

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