Claire Martin & Ian Shaw’s Early Xmas Stocking

Ian Shaw and Claire Martin are two of our very best top jazz music makers.

Well known to audiences as outstanding solo performers and well known to each other, Ian and Claire arrive together to perform as a duo this Saturday evening at Crazy Coqs for this concert of inspiring and uplifting music with their early Xmas Stocking.

Ian and Claire have sung together many times and have developed a strong polished musical connection.

Tonight, they perform complementary songs, showcasing each other’s distinctive styles for a cohesive and enjoyable performance.

Listen to the music they make but also experience how well they listen to each other, and how each of them responds to the others’ ideas, in both soloing, singing together in harmony and improvising. This will be an evening of versatile musicality.

Above all this will be an evening of great fun with Ian and Claire enjoying each other’s performance. With their distinct personalities shining through, this will be a night of wonderful music to remember for the discerning Crazy Coqs audience.

“There are few, if any, finer jazz singers than Claire Martin. She’s certainly the best the U.K. has produced, with her cunning mix of straight-ahead purity and interpretive legerdemain” – JazzTimes USA

“Ian Shaw is one of the UK’s most honest and musical jazz vocalists.” John Fordham – Guardian

CLAIRE MARTIN

Claire has, to worldwide critical acclaim, established herself as a tour de force on the UK jazz scene gaining many awards, including winning the British Jazz Awards eight times during her career which spans over three decades. In 2018 she was the proud recipient of the BASCA Gold Badge Award for her contribution to jazz.

Claire has released 18 CDs, collaborating with musical luminaries including Martin Taylor, John Martyn, Stephane Grappelli, Kenny Barron, Richard Rodney Bennett and Jim Mullen on many of these recordings.

Claire has performed worldwide with her trio and, worked extensively with the late Sir Richard Rodney Bennett in a cabaret duo setting both in England and the US.

Claire appears as a featured soloist with the Halle Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTE Concert Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the BBC Big Band and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Claire co-presented BBC Radio 3’s flagship jazz program ‘Jazz Line Up’ from 2000 to 2017 and interviewed many of her musical heroes such as Pat Metheny and the late Michael Brecker.

Her 2009 CD A Modern Art prompted Jazz Times USA to claim: “ She ranks among the four or five finest female jazz vocalists on the planet”. Her most recent album “Believin It”, recorded with her Swedish trio, has rated highly in the jazz charts

In June 2011 Claire was awarded an OBE for her Services to Jazz.

Claire has performed for JBGB Events on many occasions in London and elsewhere with Liane Carroll and Joe Stilgoe: with David Newton and Iain McKenzie at Crazy Coqs; in the London Jazz Divas series at The Pheasantry and launched her new album “Remembering Richard” – the music of Richard Rodney Bennett, at “London’s newest jazz venue, Piano Smithfield

Here’s Claire recording her show for Jazz fm with the great guitarist Jim Mullen.

IAN SHAW

Multi-award winner as best jazz vocalist – BBC Jazz Awards 2007 and 2004 and Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2018, alongside nominations from the Jazz FM Awards 2013 and Downbeat Magazine 2017 – Ian Shaw has amassed a number of highly acclaimed internationally released albums and is a popular performer both in the UK and the US. He has been cited, along with Mark Murphy and Kurt Elling, as one of the world’s finest male jazz vocalists.

Shaw’s career in performance began unusually for a jazz musician on the Alternative Cabaret Circuit, alongside such performers as Julian Clary, Rory Bremner and Jo Brand. Shaw was spotted by Dave Illic, jazz critic for City Limits and was described as “the voice of the decade”.

During the next few years Shaw moved from the singer-pianist format to working with his new band to an eventual move into jazz. Shaw has toured extensively in the UK – regular venues include the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Blackheath Concert Halls, Ronnie Scott’s, Pizza Express Soho Jazz Club, The Vortex, the Jazz Café and The Barbican. Ian has played at all of the major jazz festivals in the UK including Brecon, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh (where he was nominated for a Perrier Award), Grimsby, Glasgow, Cheltenham, Scarborough, Swanage and St.Ives

Here’s a flavour of what Ian has in store for you with this evocative interpretation of the great Juke Styne song, made famous by Barbra Streisand “People”