Like many a modern jazz player, Jessica Lauren has an ambivalent relationship with digital technology. Less revivalist than some, she still describes her new digital piano like a Provengale chef compromised by a new food processor. And yet the Roland RD500 has secured a firm enough place in her affections to earn the pet name of 'François' (after Mme 'Ardy, the French chanteuse). Praise indeed.

If the path to enlightenment is long and arduous, maybe it's because it's a process of circumnavigation. As musicians, perhaps we compare Russian doll-like, more in the scale of our universe than the breadth of our knowledge. It's certainly true that a thousand muses foster more originality than a hundred, and Lauren has paid more dues than most. Just as a writer can only generate light and shade by creatively breaking the rules, so a pianist's apprenticeship on the wine bar and wedding circuit spawns a phraseology to conjure with.

There is unquestionably an element of magic about Jessica's debut album Siren Song, which decompresses a generation of jazz and blues keyboardists faster than an crispy noodle, albeit with more flavour. There's nary a pinch of spare flesh here, its myriad styles covering more ground than others achieve in a boxed set, its musicians soloing with a feeling which is at once delicate and delirious.

Lauren herself speaks with the self-possession which flows from vision and purpose, tempered at all times with self-deprecating humour and modesty. A veteran of the Jazz Cafe from its Stoke Newington days, she's one of a generation of players to profit from the global proportions of jazz dance, and its astute promotion abroad by Straight No Chaser magazine. Joining one of their Japanese tours, she forged links with United Future Organisation, contributing piano parts to their recent album and assembling other configurations of native and touring musicians. It's one of the few skills of which she boasts, this female intuition for creative compatibility, bringing home the vibe from her Japanese sojourn like a gardener bearing a cutting of lotus blossom.

This delicacy of feeling pervades Siren Song, as much in counterpoint to a seismic bassline or latin big band sound as in the tender torch songs of Icelandic vocalist Ragga. She enters sirenlike on 'When You Call My Name', her tremulous timbre the prelude to an explosion of phased Rhodes and free-form acid jazz.

The album's 'one take' frisson is confirmed by Jessica's attitude to digital sampling and programming: "I'd rather hire in someone who understands it properly. I don't have a computer or sampler of my own; I'm too much of a keyboard junkie. I'm not opposed to digital gear when it's used in an interesting way. If it wasn't for Stuart (Baker, Siren Song producer), I'd have come up with some kind of semi-digital Crusaders vibe."

Hired for a Tom Browne gig at the Jazz Cafe, Jessica realised that only a Roland JV80 would faithfully recreate the bassline of 'Funkin' For Jamaica'. It was an early foray into the digital domain, and one she's consolidated with François (the RD500, remember?). These and other keyboards she likes to phase and wah through DOD pedals and envelope filters. She's touching in her loyalty to manufacturers, slow as they've been to beat a path to her door with sponsorship proposals. With the female jazz keyboardist such a media-friendly concept, and Nina Simone and Shirley Scott its last-known exponents, something tells me the problem won't persist.

Favourite analogues include a Hohner D6 Clavinet and a Fender Rhodes '88, custom-tweaked by the patron saint of vintage keyboards, William Dunne & Co. After her solo 'Freestyle' on the B-side of an early 12", Bill was called upon to repair 21 of the Hohner's notes. And the Fender suffered a similar fate in the hands of Gil-Scott Heron, a trauma she likens to a mother hen seeing her brood decimated. Even if the old fox returned 'Rhoda' double-jointed, she has a typically superstitious account of his legacy. Nine months later (give or take a month or two), out popped the tune 'Bless Your Heart', as Jessica puts it, 'whole'.

With a lobotomised Micro Moog and Oberheim OB8 completing the kit list, Siren Song balances retro and techno sounds in equal measure. Launched last month at the Jazz Cafe with a lineup reading like a who's who of modern jazz, posterity may deem it unique in space and time. Generous as the likes of Tony Remy, Orphy Robinson and Juliet Roberts have been with their time, re-assembling a 12-piece on a regular basis is a tall order for a small label.

Siren Song (SJR LP20) is released on all formats by Soul Jazz Records. More information from Simon or Stuart on (Contact Details)