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Claire Martin

Claire Martin

Claire Martin
Jazz vocal

The First Lady of British Jazz, Claire Martin, has won eight British Jazz Awards and was awarded an O.B.E. in 2011.

Genre
Jazz
    Biography

    Linn recording artist Claire Martin has established herself as a tour de force on the UK jazz scene. She has enjoyed worldwide critical acclaim and gained many awards, including winning eight British Jazz Awards, during a career which spans over three decades. In 2018 she was the proud recipient of the BASCA Gold Badge Award for her contribution to jazz and was named Jazz Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 Parliamentary Jazz Awards.

    Claire became a professional singer at nineteen and two years later realized her dream of singing at Ronnie Scott’s legendary jazz club in Soho. Signed to the prestigious Glasgow based Linn Records in 1990, Claire has since released twenty albums with the label, collaborating with musical luminaries including Martin Taylor, John Martyn, Stéphane Grappelli, Kenny Barron, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett and Jim Mullen on many of these recordings.

    Claire has performed worldwide with her trio and, until his death in 2012, worked extensively with the celebrated composer and pianist Sir Richard Rodney Bennett in a cabaret duo setting both in England and the US where they played to sell-out houses at venues including the prestigious Algonquin Hotel in New York City. Claire appears as a featured soloist with the Hallé, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the RTÉ 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 recording A Modern Art prompted JazzTimes to claim: "She ranks among the four or five finest female jazz vocalists on the planet". At the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2011 Claire was delighted to be awarded an OBE for services to Jazz.