Linn recording artist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Claire Martin has spent the last 30 years honing the craft of jazz singing. To worldwide critical acclaim she has established herself as a tour de force on the UK jazz scene gaining many awards, including winning the British Jazz Awards seven times along the way.
Signed to the prestigious Glasgow based Linn Records in 1990, Claire has since 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.
Claire has performed all over the world with her trio and, until his death in 2012, worked extensively with the celebrated composer and pianist Sir Richard Rodney Bennett in an intimate cabaret duo setting both in England and in America where they played to sell out crowds at venues including the prestigious Algonquin Hotel in New York City. Claire is also 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. She has co-presented BBC Radio 3’s flag ship jazz program ‘Jazz Line Up’ since 2000 and has 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”.
Claire was thrilled to win both the 2009 and 2010 ‘Best Vocalist’ category at the British Jazz Awards and toured extensively throughout the UK, Scandinavia, Russia and China, appearing with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and her world-class trio. 2011 proved to be an extraordinary year for Claire who made her debut at the Lincoln Center in New York with Grammy nominated pianist Bill Charlap and went on to perform for the third time at the famous Algonquin Hotel for a three week residency with Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. Their CD Witchcraft gained much critical acclaim and was “unequivocally recommended” by Jazzwise magazine. At the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June, Claire was delighted to be awarded an OBE for her Services to Jazz.
