One of the hottest events in the UK jazz calendar - the Big Sky Jazz Festival in Margate - is being staged at the Winter Gardens, the Piazza and other key venues around the popular seaside resort on July 25 and 27 and August 2.
Some of Britain's best jazz talents are lined up for this premier music fest - now in its fourth year - which has been organised by Margate Town Partnership with the support of Thanet District Council.
The festival launches at the Winter Gardens on July 25 with Celebration of Voice featuring Barb Jungr with Jenny Carr on piano, Christine Tobin, Anita Wardell, Ian Shaw and the Phil Robson Quartet.
Jungr's hypnotic vocal style draws on sources as varied as Jacques Brel, Bob Dylan, Ray Davies and Elvis. With her winning combo of splendid voice, intelligence with a lyric and innate charm, it's easy to see why she is the UK's top song stylist.
One of the strongest, most beguiling voices on the UK jazz scene, Tobin's expressive style is firmly rooted in a story-telling tradition that mixes blues, folk and jazz - a territory occupied by such luminaries as Joni Mitchell, Cassandra Wilson and Nina Simone. She has just released her seventh album - Secret Life of a Girl - described by Lionel Shriver in the Guardian as "sexy, gutsy, bluesy and beautiful".
Winner of the prestigious BBC Jazz Awards in 2006, Wardell has been acclaimed for the unique artistry she brings to scat and be-pop, and rave reviews from peers and critics have confirmed her reputation as one of the UK's great straightahead vocalists. On her current album, Kinda Blue, she showcases her exceptional ability to take a song and make it her own.
Named Best Jazz Vocalist at the BBC Jazz Awards of 2004 and 2007, Shaw is unquestionably the UK's finest male jazz singer. His material ranges from Joni Mitchell to standards and contemporary classics, all performed in engagingly relaxed style. His new self-penned album Lifejacket is "a suite of stories recalling friendships, childhood dreams and dodgy Soho nights". (Jazzwise March 2008).
Guitarist Phil Robson is internationally regarded as a versatile and creative musician. Co-founder (with saxophonist Julian Siegel) of the ground-breaking group Partisans, he is also a composer of note, leading Six Strings and the Beat - a project for guitar trio and string quartet which premiered at the Vortex Jazz Club in London in 2007.
Other gigs feature one of the giants of British jazz, Don Weller - possibly the greatest tenor saxophonist of our times; the versatile and eclectic Annie Whitehead; singer and songwriter Sarah Gillespie (Time Out intoned: "her mesmerising, acoustically-styled songs shimmer with a resonant beauty"); Amit Chaudhuri and his amazing Indian version of jazz; solo jazz guitarist John Etheridge - at the forefront of the jazz and contemporary guitar world for 30 years; Carol Grimes Band ('jazz songs for night people'); Gilad Atzmon's Orient House Ensemble; Stan Sulzmann and the John Parricelli Quartet; the Grand Union Band, and the Liam Noble Trio.
Additional venues include The Indian Princess (01843 231504); The Harbour Café Bar (01843 290110) and The Wig & Pen (01843 231180).
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