[ARCHIVE] Ian Shaw and the Phil Ware Trio Mar 22
Ian Shaw – voice- Phil Ware – piano
- Dave Redmond – bass
- Kevin Brady – drums
This will be a highly charged evening as superb vocalist meets top trio.
Their original musical meet-up was at the Galway Jazz Festival in 2006; Phil invited Ian back to guest with the trio in Dublin in 2007, and RTÉ Lyric FM reunited them later that year for The Blue of the Night Live, broadcast from the Dublin Fringe Festival. Ian calls the Trio a ‘dream band’, and their collaboration has continued with many appearances in Ireland and the UK, including Ronnie Scott’s and Pizza Express Jazz Club in London. Phil also features on Ian’s highly acclaimed 2010 recording The Abbey Road Sessions.
Twice winner of the BBC Jazz Award for Best Vocalist, and with over a dozen highly acclaimed albums to his name, Ian Shaw has been described as one of the most distinctive, original and creative jazz singers on the scene. Alongside his own projects, he is much in demand as the featured soloist with big bands and orchestras, both in the UK and internationally, in addition to his long-term pairings with the likes of Guy Barker, Liane Carroll and Claire Martin.
“Praised far and wide as the greatest male jazz singer Britain has to offer” Jazz Times
Celebrating their tenth year together, The Phil Ware Trio are renowned both for their driving swing and for their sparse, atmospheric approach to down-tempo material. First-call for many visiting artists, they have toured extensively in their own right and twice been chosen to represent Ireland at the Eurojazz festival in Mexico City.
“It’s no surprise that they’re one of the hardest-working jazz trios in the country, with an appetite for exploration that was matched pound for pound by an insistent connection to their listeners” The Irish Times
Ian Shaw
“Best Jazz Vocalist“ at the BBC Jazz Awards in 2007 and 2004, and this year nominated in the Best UK Vocalist category at the JazzFM awards, Ian Shaw has already amassed a number of highly acclaimed intentionally 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 current release, his 13th studio album, A Ghost In Every Bar, The Lyrics Of Fran Landesman (Splash Point Records), has been exceptionally well received in Europe and America (see reviews). The recording, made in April 2012, fulfilled a long-standing promise made to the late poet/lyricist Landesman to make an album devoted to her work. Ian was one of her favourite singers and his past discography includes many of her songs.
In the summer of 2010 Shaw joined an historical legacy of artists and recorded his first Abbey Road studio album. Using a personal blueprint connection in the shape of legendary bassist Peter Ind, Shaw and his young guitarist collaborator, David Preston, assembled a stellar, international, cross-generational band resulting in a recording that led Jamie Cullum to say “the incomparable Ian Shaw… absolutely fantastic“ and reflects Shaw’s position as one of the world’s leading jazz singers.
His acclaimed 2006 album Drawn To All Things – The Songs Of Joni Mitchell, saw him “Praised far and wide as the single greatest male jazz vocalist Britain has to offer“ by Jazz Times. This was followed in 2008 by the autobiographical collection co-penned with David Preston, Lifejacket, also on Linn Records. In 2009 Shaw recorded his long-awaited solo album, Somewhere Towards Love (Splash Point Records) which continues to represent beautifully his increasingly popular solo shows.
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 Cork, Brecon, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh (where he was nominated for a Perrier Award), Grimsby, Glasgow, Cheltenham, Scarborough, Swanage and St. Ives.
In Europe he has proved popular in France, Germany and Italy with numerous live appearances. He has also performed regularly in the States including Jazz at the Lincoln Center (New York), Cine Grill (Hollywood), the Fairmont (Chicago), The Nest (Washington DC), Fez Club (New York), the Ellington Church (New York), the Pasadena Auditorium (California), the Miami Film and Music Festival and the Arizona Jazz Party. He has also performed at the Hanoi Opera House and Ho Chi Minh City Opera in Vietnam. More recently Ian has become a frequent visitor to Canada, as result of frequent play on the 24 hour JazzFM91 radio station where his Ronnie Scott’s Radio Show airs weekly.
His appearances on TV include guest slots with Jools Holland, Top of the Pops, The Jack Dee Show, Christmas Night with the Stars (BBC), Channel 4’s The Happening, TVAM, BBC Breakfast Show, BBC 2’s A Night of Love, BBC 2’s Jazz at the 606 alongside numerous appearances on the Performance and Artsworld channels. More recently Shaw featured in the prestigious live session slot of BBC 2’s The Review Show. Channel 4 filmed him with Liane Carroll for their series, Random Acts.
Collaborators over the years have been many and include Quincy Jones, Abudullah Ibrahim, Guy Barker, Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Iain Ballamy, Mornington Lockett, Barb Jungr, Cleo Laine, John Dankworth, Cedar Walton, Joe Lovano and Joe Beck. Shaw’s ongoing and highly popular collaboration is a celebrated duet show with Claire Martin, the UK’s finest female jazz singer (he also guested on her 2002 album Too Darn Hot! (Linn AKD 243)). Together they have toured the world in an intimate duo setting with Shaw playing piano and with the BBC Big Band. They co-hosted the 2004 BBC Jazz Awards.
One of his recent songs, the self-penned Somewhere Towards Love, has been a radio favourite, chosen by both style icon, Molly Parkin, on her Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4) and by fellow performer Julian Clary on the Jools Holland Show (BBC Radio 2). Shaw’s 2008 album Lifejacket cemented his reputation as a fine song-writer as well as a great jazz singer.
Shaw was for some time the presenter on BBC Big Band Special on BBC Radio 2 and is a regular on BBC Radios 2, 3 and 4, BBC Radio London and the recently revamped JazzFM where he guest presented their legendary Dinner Jazz show alongside the likes of Bruce Forsyth. In October 2012 Shaw presented a show called Miles Symphonic live from the Tower Ballroom Blackpool for Radio 3. Ian currently presents The Ronnie Scott’s Radio Show, broadcast on JazzFM91 Canada, which started life on JazzFM UK. Shaw hosted the inaugural JazzFM Jazz Awards in January this year.
In 2011 Shaw joined Rory Bremner on a UK stand-up tour where he firmly returned to his roots by performing a mix of comedy and original songs. The tour picked up again in the Spring of 2012 starting with the Glasgow Comedy Festival and playing dates nationwide through the summer.
A Bit of Mouthful – An Evening With Ian Shaw, a delicious confectionery of witty songs and stories hit the Edinburgh Festival in August 2012 to great acclaim for a month’s run at the famous Stand comedy club.
