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Claire Martin
Claire Martin at Aarhus Jazz Festival 2011
Background information
Born	1967 (age 51–52) Wimbledon, London, England
Genres	Jazz, vocal jazz
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Linn
Website	clairemartinjazz.co.uk

Claire Martin, OBE (born 6 September 1967) is an English jazz singer.^[1]

Music career[edit]

Martin was born in Colliers Wood, London. She grew up in a house "full of music" thanks to jazz-loving parents. She cites Ella Fitzgerald's Song Books as the inspiration to study singing at the Doris Holford Stage School and in New York and London. Her professional career began at the age of 19 when she sang in a hotel band in at the Savoy Hotel after auditioning to be a bluecoatBournemouth. For two years, she worked aboard the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth, where she sang in the piano bar.^[2]

When she was 21, she formed her own jazz quartet. In 1991, she was signed by the Scottish jazz label Linn Records, and her debut album, The Waiting Game, was released in 1992. Later that year, she opened for Tony Bennett at the Glasgow International Jazz Festival.

Martin has performed all over Europe and Asia with her trio and, until his death in 2012, with Richard Rodney Bennett in an intimate cabaret duo setting in England and in America. They played to sell-out crowds at venues including the Algonquin Hotel in New York City. She has been a featured soloist with the Halle Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the BBC Big Band, and the BBC Concert Orchestra. She has co-presented BBC Radio 3's Jazz Line Up since 2000 and has interviewed many of her musical heroes, such as Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker, Brad Mehldau, and André Previn. She has collaborated with Martin Taylor, John Martyn, Stéphane Grappelli, Kenny Barron, Richard Rodney Bennett, Jim Mullen and Nigel Hitchcock.

She toured extensively throughout the UK, Scandinavia, Russia, and China, appearing with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and her trio. In 2011, she made her debut at Lincoln Center in New York City with pianist Bill Charlap and performed at the Algonquin Hotel for a three-week residency with Rodney Bennett.

Martin recorded with jazz pianist Kenny Barron on Too Much in Love to Care (Linn, 2011). In 2013, she toured with her show, The Two of U, and worked with conductor John Wilson, Joe Stilgoe, Mark McGann, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, celebrating the music of Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

Martin collaborated with the Montpellier Cello Quartet, performing arrangements written for her by Rodney Bennett, Mark Anthony Turnage, and Django Bates. This new chamber jazz ensemble toured throughout 2014 to promote the album Time and Place, which featured singer and pianist Joe Stilgoe, who became Martin's cabaret partner. They performed to a sell-out crowd in Wigmore Hall, where they celebrated the songs of Paris.

Awards and honors[edit]

• Best Vocalist, British Jazz Awards, 2009, 2010


• Best New Recording, Too Much in Love to Care, British Jazz Awards, 2012


• 
  Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), 2011^[3]

Critical reception[edit]

• 
  A Modern Art prompted JazzTimes to claim: "She ranks among the four or five finest female jazz vocalists on the planet".


• 
  Too Much in Love to Care received five-star reviews and prompted Jazz Journal to state that she is "one of the finest jazz singers in the world today".


• 
  Witchcraft gained much critical acclaim and was "unequivocally recommended" by Jazzwise magazine.

Discography[edit]

• 1992 The Waiting Game
  


• 1993 Devil May Care
  


• 1994 Old Boyfriends
  


• 1995 Off Beat
  


• 1997 Make This City Ours
  


• 1999 Take My Heart
  


• 2000 Perfect Alibi
  


• 2001 The Very Best of Claire Martin: Every Now and Then
  


• 2002 Too Darn Hot
  


• 2004 Secret Love
  


• 2005 When Lights Are Low
  


• 2006 Girl Talk (with Barb Jungr and Mari Wilson)


• 2007 He Never Mentioned Love
  


• 2010 Witchcraft (with Richard Rodney Bennett)


• 2012 Too Much In Love to Care (with Kenny Barron)


• 2013 Say It Isn't So (with Richard Rodney Bennett)


• 2014 Time and Place (with the Montpellier Cello Quartet)


• 2015 A Modern Art
  


• 2016 We've Got a World That Swings
  

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Linn Records


• 
  Conversation between Richard Rodney Bennett and Claire Martin – British Library sound recording