PizzaExpress Jazz Club (Soho)

PizzaExpress Live in partnership with the Hampstead Jazz Club Present The Heart Wants (UK Tour), celebrating the much-anticipated first self-penned solo album by Jo Harrop. Written and recorded over the last year when the world came to a sudden standstill in the wake of the pandemic, The Heart Wants is an album about love and life, about losing and then finding oneself in the silence after the applause has faded away.

“A very fine jazz singer.”

Iggy Pop – BBC 6 Music

Although she has built a reputation as one of the most unmistakable voices in British jazz, Jo Harrop would be the first to admit that she always lacked the confidence to reveal her own songs to the world. With no shows in her diary, she started working on what would eventually turn out to be her first album of original material with producers Hannah Vasanth (who made her name working with UK-rap star, Stormzy, and JP Cooper) and Jamie McCredie alongside a guest-list of world class jazz musicians including Christian McBride, Jason Rebello, Troy Miller and Paul Edis.

Born in Durham and raised on a heady musical diet of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin, Jo Harrop cut her teeth as a session singer, working with a host of iconic artists including Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart and Gloria Gaynor. After moving to London, she quickly established herself as one of the most unmistakable voices in British jazz. Having signed to London-based jazz label, Lateralize Records, she released Weathering The Storm, her debut with guitarist, Jamie McCredie, and The Heart Wants, which has received a raft of rapturous reviews everywhere from The Times to The Guardian and been extensively played on BBC Radio 2, BBC 6 Music and Jazz FM.

Band Line Up

Jo Harrop (vocals)
Paul Edis (Musical Director/piano)
Jamie McCredie (guitar)
Jihad Darwish (bass)
Pete Adam Hill (drums)
Freddie Gavita (trumpet)