Preparing for a Radio or Newspaper Interview

Only one week until the start of my "Celebrating the Divas of Jazz" tour!  The first gig is Stratford Jazz at The Chapel in Stratford upon Avon on Sunday 6th February.

Last week I appeared on two radio shows.  The first was an interview with John Hellings for BBC Hereford and adjoining regions and the second was with Ruth Fisher for the Good Groove Show on Solar Radio.  Listening back I realised that I might have done better if I'd prepared a bit.  I spent a lot of time searching for things to say and interspersing my sentences with "you know" - one of my pet hates!  Here are the sorts of questions I should have been prepared to answer:

How did you start out?
Which artists are you influenced by?
Who have you worked with?
Who would you like to work with?
What's been the highlight of your career?
What are you currently working on?
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
What's on your wish list?
What are your plans for the future?
When/where are you performing next?
(And remember to plug website, facebook, twitter etc!)

I suppose I know most of the answers to these but put on the spot and not having  thought about them recently meant my answers ended up a bit garbled.  So next time I will be prepared!

I've got a rehearsal with my band this week.  Can't wait!  And I've still got to decide what to wear for my first gig.  Swithering at the moment between either a black or a red dress...




About to be interviewed at Solar Radio studio



Organising a UK Jazz Tour - Update

I've just realised that I've been a little lax lately with the blog posts.  So thought I'd update you and let you know how I've been doing with my "homework"...

• Contracts/email confirmations have been received and signed for all dates.
• Received 80% of the funding grant awarded by Jazz Services. (The final 20% to be sent on the completion of the tour and my return of assessment reports/forms for each gig.)
• Flyers and posters printed and sent out to all venues for February dates.  Publicity material for March dates to be sent out in the next couple of weeks.
• Press release emailed to radio stations.  So far 3 interviews have been booked - BBC Stoke, BBC Devon and Solar Radio.
• Press release sent to local newspapers.  Nice preview in Berwickshire newspaper and another feature planned.
• Tour details uploaded to sites like remotegoat and ReverbNation.  I'd definitely recommend remotegoat as it very helpfully syndicates automatically to local newspapers and other online sites like Ents24.
• Accommodation booked.
• Rehearsal with band organised. 

So almost time to concentrate solely on the music...  Aaah - my favourite part!  :-)

Juliet Kelly's Vocal Zone

My first radio show airs this Saturday at 8pm on the internet jazz radio station UK Jazz Radio!

Here's the official blurb:

Vocal Zone is jazz singer and songwriter Juliet Kelly’s new monthly show on UK Jazz Radio and will reflect the vocal contribution to the current vibrant jazz scene both in the UK and abroad.   Although acknowledging the great debt today’s singers owe to the jazz icons of the past, she will be focussing mainly on present-day established and rising stars.  Juliet is also keen to introduce you to under-rated and up-and-coming singers who have yet to hit the radar.

For the first show the theme was Standards and I played tracks by established artists from mostly the US although there were a couple from UK singers too.  The overall theme for Vocal Zone is to promote current artists, and hopefully encourage people to discover and support singers new to them by going out to see them live when they are performing nearby.

November Playlist - Standards:

Cassandra Wilson – Polkadots and Moonbeams (Cassandra Sings Standards – Verve)

Dianne Reeves – Exactly Like You  (That Day – Blue Note)

Tina May – Darn That Dream  (Fun – 33 Records)

Carmen Lundy – My Favourite Things  (Self Portrait – JVC)

Lizz Wright – I’m Confessin’  (Dreaming Wide Awake – Verve)

Liane Carroll – How Insensitive (ft John Parricelli & Bobby Wellins)  (Standard Issue – Splashpoint)

Patricia Barber – Bye Bye Blackbird  (Nightclub – Blue Note)

Dee Dee Bridgewater – Pretty Eyes  (Love and Peace – Verve)

Kurt Elling – I Like The Sunrise  (Nightmoves – Concord)

Next month the theme will be "Under-rated".  I will be playing tracks from vocalists I feel deserve more exposure/recognition.  Sadly it seems as if it's always the same voices that get airtime or column inches.  I'm not saying these singers are not deserving but why not spread the love!  It's the same story with instrumental bands but as this radio show is called Vocal Zone I'll reserve that argument for another time. :-)   One of the tracks I'll be playing in the next show is from an album by Christine Tobin.  It's a crime that it took SO long for her to eventually get a BBC Jazz Award in 2004.  She didn't win but she was nominated once again in 2008.  I'm not sure when she started singing but I know that when I was starting out in the mid-90's she was already an outstanding artist and it wasn't until a decade later that her talent was recognised by the "tastemakers".  Happily, Christine won the award second time round but jokes that she "put the kibosh on it" as that was also the year the BBC decided to stop sponsoring what was arguably one of the most respected awards in jazz...

But November is also the month of the London Jazz Festival to which the BBC still lends its support and long may that continue...  There are some fabulous bands to go and see between 12-21 November.  Sadly I'm not performing this year (sob!) but I'll will be showing my support by going out to see some great gigs starting with the Jazz on 3 Launch of the festival at Ronnie Scott's on Friday.

Jazz on the Airwaves

Yesterday I attended the relaunch party and one year anniversary of UK Jazz Radio.  It was so wonderful to see the support for what is sadly one of the few media outlets for jazz in this country.  There was great music from Digby Fairweather and his band and guest spots included appearances from the excellent Geoff Eales, the fabulous Tina May and a wonderful singer I'd not heard before called Val Wiseman.

BBC Radio does a fairly good job but obviously they need to cater to all tastes and can't be expected to play jazz 24/7.  Here's a useful page where you can find a summary of the jazz on BBC Radio. Looking through this list though we can see that they've also included blues in this list and also that a lot of the programmes are general music programmes that aren't averse to adding jazz tracks to the playlist rather than playing jazz exclusively. 

Then there's Jazz FM...  After the demise of theJazz - a new station that only lasted 2 years - I was so excited to hear in 2008 that Jazz FM was back on the airwaves after its ambush and takeover by Smooth FM.  Sadly, however, it's no longer available on FM (regular radio) and can only be heard online or on DAB (digital radio) in restricted areas.  On a positive note though, apparently it's available using iPhone or Google android apps too. 

So with the lack of dedicated jazz on the radio,  I'm really hoping that all lovers of jazz will get behind and give massive support to UK Jazz Radio - a new internet radio station - that devotes itself completely to jazz and has already attracted 600,000 listeners worldwide.  Founder and one-man operator Brian Soundy has worked tirelessly to get the station up and running and the presenters have given their time to promote and support jazz in the UK.  Please listen to the excellent programmes and most of all SPREAD THE WORD!

(I have to declare an interest here...  I'm one of 9 new presenters to the station and will be starting my "Juliet Kelly's Vocal Zone" programme soon to highlight the wealth of vocal talent on the current jazz scene.  It goes without saying that we are all indebted to the icons of the past like Ella, Sarah, Nina and Bille but I'm hoping to introduce listeners to singers who are currently continuing the tradition and/or pushing the boundaries to contribute to the vibrant and evolving jazz scene today.  I'll post details of the first programme soon.)

In other news...  I've been a bit slack recently with working on the tour but during the last week I've:

• Worked on the press release - almost finished.
• Confirmed all dates with promoters (apart from one.  Hmm....at this late stage it's doubtful that I'll be able to replace it as I did with the other two.)
• Previewed the material at the Pizza Express.  Just a few rough edges that need to be sorted before we take it on tour.  On the whole though I'm very pleased!

Next week I'll be:

• Making sure that I've sent all necessary information to each promoter/venue for brochures/websites/programmes.
• Researching contacts for local newspapers and radio stations for the areas I'll be visiting.

I'll also be recording my first radio show and working on another couple of new projects.  More news soon.

If I've missed any jazz radio programmes on other independent stations please feel free to post them below.  It would be great to have a comprehensive list of all the jazz radio shows in the UK.