Claire Martin's Early Christmas Cracker

Claire Martin has established herself as a tour de force on the UK jazz scene gaining many awards, including winning the British Jazz Awards as best vocalist eight times during her career which spans almost 4 decades.

Claire became a professional singer aged 19 and two years later realised her dream of singing at Ronnie Scott’s legendary jazz club in London Soho. Signed to the prestigious Glasgow based Linn Records in 1990, she released 18 CDs with the label, collaborating with musical luminaries including Martin Taylor, John Martyn, Stephane Grappelli, Kenny Barron, Richard Rodney Bennett and Jim Mullen on many of these recordings with Seth MacFarlane, performing at the Royal Albert Hall, London (BBC Proms 2015).

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 also 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”.

""Indestructibly hip" " - John Fordham