Listen to a preview of the new album here.
Forthcoming gigs
Saturday 29 April – The Angel, Woolhampton
Sunday 14 May – Bateaux, Embankment Pier
Saturday 3 June – Cheam Fields tennis club
Sunday 2 July – Bateaux, Embankment Pier
Saturday 22 July – Toulouse Lautrec, with The Mü Orchestra
Friday 11 August – Oliver’s, Greenwich
Monday 2/Friday 5 October – Fribourg and Lausanne, Switzerland
Full details of all gigs here.
Peter Jones is an experienced and versatile jazz singer who has played all over London and the southeast with some of the UK’s finest musicians. His two albums have received rave reviews.
His forthcoming album of self-penned tunes, Under The Setting Sun, features Anthony Kerr on vibes, Vasilis Xenopoulos on flute/tenor saxophone, Neil Angilley on piano, Andy Hamill on double bass and Davide Giovannini on drums. It will be released later in the year, but in the meantime you can listen to a preview here.
Utopia, released in February 2016, also features Neil and Davide, plus Nigel Price on guitar and Henry Lowther on trumpet, with Misha Mullov-Abbado on double bass. It won plaudits from Jazzwise magazine, BBC 6Music’s Gilles Peterson and Jazz FM’s Sarah Ward, who played tracks on her Dinner Jazz show. Tracks have also been played on BBC Radio London, Soulpower Radio, Radio X (Frankfurt), Meridian FM, Croydon Radio and Marlow FM. And in a year-end poll, London Jazz News’s Mark McKergow named it his CD of 2016.
Peter has been building a reputation as a jazz singer ever since the release of One Way Ticket to Palookaville, in 2013, again with Vasilis, Neil and Davide, plus Geoff Gascoyne (bass). ‘Great arrangements… a killer band. This debut album has lots to recommend it,’ reported Jazzwise.
Influenced by the great Mark Murphy, Peter’s mature baritone voice may also remind you of Kurt Elling, Georgie Fame or José James (some have even mentioned Matt Monro). A talented lyricist, he has added words to some jazz classics that didn’t previously have any. With a large and growing repertoire of tunes, he has performed headline gigs at prestigious venues like The Pheasantry, Toulouse Lautrec, The Bull’s Head, The Boaters, Mill Hill Jazz Club, Twickenham Jazz Club, Leamington Jazz Club, The Langham Hotel, The Spice of Life, Oliver’s in Greenwich and Rincon in Richmond, plus guest spots at Ronnie Scott’s and the 606 Club.
Recent projects have included tributes to both Frank Sinatra and Mark Murphy. The Sinatra show was put together on the occasion of the legendary crooner’s 100th birthday, and features some of his best-loved songs, from Come Fly With Me and Old Devil Moon to the haunting It Was A Very Good Year.
Murphy has been a major influence on many contemporary jazz singers, particularly Kurt Elling. This show features tunes through which Mark extended the jazz singing repertoire, with the voice used more like an instrument, from the mournful ballad Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most, to his classic rendition of Stolen Moments, to reinterpretations of post-bop tunes like Red Clay and Maiden Voyage, all the way through to Donald Fagen’s Maxine.
Peter’s forthcoming book – This Is Hip: The Life of Mark Murphy – is due from Equinox Publishing in 2018. Interview about this with Gilles Peterson here.
More recently he has been working with the Mü Orchestra to develop jazz renditions of classic tunes by Steely Dan and Donald Fagen. These were premiered at Toulouse Lautrec in December 2016.
Since the end of 2014 Peter has also been contributing reviews and articles to London Jazz News.
Interview (April 2015) with London Jazz News here.
42 seconds of jazz –