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Jazz Articles about Claire Martin
Sarah L King: Fire Horse
by Neil Duggan
Starting her musical path with coaching from Mike King, one of the UK's leading contemporary vocal coaches, Sarah L King (no relation), surfaced as a solo jazz vocalist, releasing an EP of standards and several singles. Her passage was helped by a family heritage consisting of an accomplished jazz trumpeter father and an orchestral conductor grandmother. An early career as a writer and director of short films provided the right impetus to be a compelling musical narrator. King's ...
read moreClaire Martin: Time And Place
by Dan Bilawsky
Few vocalists are as elegant and eloquent as Claire Martin. She's been dubbed “The First Lady of British Jazz," but she doesn't simply belong to her own people; she's one of the crown jewels of the jazz world, contributing classy and intelligent music via her steady flow of albums on the Linn imprint. In the past, Martin has tried plenty of different things. She collaborated with pianist-composer Richard Rodney Bennett, tipped her cap to Shirley Horn, visited ...
read moreClaire Martin: A Modern Art
by Bruce Lindsay
Is jazz still a modern art? It's a hundred years old, after all, and some performers and fans seem to ignore everything written after 1940. But as far as the work of Claire Martin is concerned the question has only one answer. Apart from being one of the finest singers on the current scene, Martin is constantly searching for new writers and new ways to interpret them, ensuring that her own approach to music stays resolutely in the present. A ...
read moreClaire Martin: Improvisation, Inspiration, Imagination
by Katrina-Kasey Wheeler
Since Claire Martin's debut, The Waiting Game (Linn Records, 1992), she has been an instant success. She is hailed by many as the best British singer of the decade, with numerous prestigious awards and over ten albums to her credit. Martin started singing as a teenager and found her calling as a jazz singer early on. Having been influenced by such artists as Shirley Horn, Sheila Jordan, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, she has successfully created her own unique sound ...
read moreClaire Martin & Richard Rodney Bennett: When Lights Are Low
by Michael P. Gladstone
I'm happy to report new activity from one of my favorite jazz vocalists, Claire Martin. Her new album is a duo recording with pianist (and vocalist) Richard Rodney Bennett. Despite the fact that Martin has released ten albums and a compilation since 1992, she still needs an introduction to even so-called jazz vocal enthusiasts. The British vocalist has recorded for Linn Records and has placed regularly on “best of" jazz surveys, sometimes within the top ten. She has won Best ...
read moreClaire Martin: Every Now and Then: The Very Best of Claire Martin
by Dave Nathan
Claire Martin has been one of the more outstanding new voices of the 1990's, not only in her native England, but in the US as well. For her eighth album for the British Linn label, Martin has decided to look back by compiling some selections from those previous releases and include some of the better offerings found on her Linn recording resume. It's interesting that while most of the musical agenda is made up of jazz tunes, most of them ...
read moreClaire Martin: Perfect Alibi
by Craig Jolley
One of the best of a strong crop of young British jazz singers, Claire Martin has been on the scene for over ten years. Actually it's not clear she is a jazz singer, but that's another discussion. One thing that makes sense is her repertoire. She used to sing show tunes from the '30s and '40s and probably still does occasionally, but lately she's been recording the better pop songs of the last forty years (the Beatles and after). She ...
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