Lydia Bell & The Jazz Hours

A night of vocal-led jazz classics, from Stardust to ‘S Wonderful. Vocalist Lydia Bell and her band The Jazz Hours breathe new life into the most beautiful jazz classics, presenting their original interpretations of the best music of the era. Inspired by the jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Peggy Lee, they were delighted to host their launch show at The Pheasantry in January 2024.

Join Lydia Bell & The Jazz Hours at PizzaExpress Live Chelsea for a night of beautiful jazz standards and sensational musicianship. The Jazz Hours is a project from Down for the Count - one of the UK’s most popular swing bands. Down for the Count regularly tour the UK, appearing at London Jazz Festival, Cadogan Hall, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, and numerous sold-out PizzaExpress Live shows - and the band was delighted to launch its new quintet line-up, The Jazz Hours, at The Pheasantry in 2024.

Fronted by vocalist Lydia Bell, and led by saxophonist Alex Western-King and pianist Mike Paul-Smith, The Jazz Hours perform classic standards from The Great American Songbook in a fresh, invigorating style, finding new life in these timeless songs.

Lydia Bell studied jazz at The Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Her classic jazz voice is influenced by a lifetime of listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, and the other great vocalists of the jazz era. When not appearing with The Jazz Hours, Lydia can be found performing with Down for the Count, power folk quartet Wise Woman, and The London Vocal project.

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Mike Paul-Smith is a musical director and pianist who founded Down for the Count in 2005. Under his direction the band have gone on to appear at many of the UK’s top jazz clubs and concert halls, where audiences have been entertained by the band’s stunning musicianship and Mike’s witty anecdotes, which put the songs in their historical context.