Interview in English on JAZZESPRESSO Network:
- what made you desire to be a jazz singer / musician?
I fell in love with the harmony. At 14 years old I went to music school to study clarinet and was offered jazz piano lessons. I remember being totally mesmerised by the first few chords I heard my teacher play, and from then – I was hooked. I’d already been singing a little bit and playing piano by ear, before my jazz studies, but it was at college I started to sing and play… the gigs paid a lot better if you could do both!
- what is jazz today in your opinion?
Jazz continues to be a thriving and exciting art form. I am what they call in the jazz scene ’straight ahead’ – I like radio friendly jazz – but there’s so much vibrant and exciting modern jazz music coming out from all corners of the globe right now… People like Jacob Collier spring to mind, he’s really pushing the boundaries and making music like nobody has done before. So inspiring.
- “ME AND MY RADIO” How did you choose, arrange and write songs; and how do you choose the musicians you play with ?
I wrote the song list over about a 6 month period… it started at around 20 songs and I slowly whittled it down over the months. I demoed every song in my home studio playing the instruments in myself to get an idea of how they would sound and some of the arrangements just ‘shone’ more than others. The album almost wrote itself! As for the musicians, I was really keen to use the guys I’d be playing with on the road… not only are they the band that most audiences hear me playing with live, and we have a great understanding of each other, but they also really understand how to play both jazz AND pop music. It’s not often you find this… They just ‘get it’. Really swinging but also really groovy at the same time.
→ Link to interview to JAZZESPRESSO ENGLISH
→ Link to interview to JAZZESPRESSO SPANISH
→ Link to interview to JAZZESPRESSO CHINESE
→ Link to interview to JAZZESPRESSO CHINESE SIMPLIFIED