Out with the Old - In with the New!

Happy New Year!

2011 was quite a busy year for me.  Highlights included:

• My first UK tour (from Cornwall to Northumberland) with new Celebrating the Divas project with my band in February was a great success with several sold-out dates and quite a few radio and newspaper interviews
• In March I performed at a charity event attended by Prince Charles
• In March I also gave a speech (sharing the stage with MPs and the actress Maggie Steed!) for the Lost Arts initiative - extremely scary but a very worthwhile event
• Four sell-out dates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were the highlights in April
• Two licensing deals for music from my album Licorice Kiss - the first for Spain/Portugal and the second for Singapore/China
• Four festival appearances for a Greek Islands tour with Dimitri Vassilakis Qt in July and August made for a blissfully sunny and beautiful summer
• Five wonderful gigs with Kate Williams at village halls in the rural north of the UK also saw some beautiful hot weather at the end of September
• My debut performance at an historic venue in Moscow in October
• Two gigs at the London Jazz Festival with a new European Journey project with Jonny Phillips
• My debut performance in Hong Kong and a return to Moscow in November
• Finally December saw me return to Greece with two gigs in Athens over Christmas where I also managed to finish 8 new songs!

Plans for 2012 include:

• A return to Russia for 3 performances in February
• Another rural tour with pianist Kate Williams in March
• A new duo project with pianist Kit Downes
• Recording one (or maybe even two!) albums

Phew!  After all that I think I deserve a quiet, relaxed January... and that's exactly what I have planned.

Here's hoping 2012 brings us all lots of love, luck, laughter and lolly!

Musicians and Copyright

Apologies for being AWOL recently but I've been super-busy!

So far this summer I have been to Greece twice, up north to Wirral and I'm about to start my rural tour in Cumbria, Durham and Northumberland tomorrow.  And BBC weather states that we're heading for a UK heatwave - yay!  I won't need any wellies - which is just as well as I couldn't find any sequinned ones...

And next month I'm off to Moscow to perform there for the first time.  Before that I'll be back up north to Wakefield and then in December back again to Greece for some gigs over the Christmas period. :-)

I've also been rehearsing for a new European project with guitarist Jonny Phillips for the London Jazz Festival in November.  I'm planning to sing songs in Italian, French, German, Spanish and Russian!  Time to brush up on those language skills...

But back to the reason for this post.  An excellent guide to copyright has just been published by the wonderful Jazz Services.  It contains important information that every musician/composer should know.  Definitely worth checking out to make sure you're not missing out on any potential income.

Download the Jazz Services Guide to Copyright here

Moscow Mule Cool or Russia Revisited

I've been booked to go back to Russia!  Really looking forward to performing in Moscow.  Although I've been to Russia several times - including Siberia! - I've only been to Moscow as a connecting point and have never played there.

But that's about to change as I've got 2 dates (27 & 28th October) in the diary at a couple of great clubs.

Jazz Club "Soyuz Kompozitorov" (or The Union of Composers) is widely known among musical circles in Moscow and has live music every evening.  Luminaries such as Joshua Redman and Diane Shuur have both performed there.

The second club is called "Cool Train" and lives within the B2 Club.  B2 is the biggest club in Moscow and one of the largest clubs in Europe. The five floors of the club house a restaurant, a sushi-bar, a billiard room, a jazz club, a modern concert stage, a dance floor, a chill-out, a cinécafé and 7 bars. UK Jazz musicians Peter King and Dick Pearce have both played here.  It looks amazing!

It may be pretty cold in Moscow by that time of the year but I'm sure I'll be offered plenty of vodka or perhaps even Moscow Mule cocktails to keep me warm! :-)

Glam Goes Rustic! Dorset, Wirral, Cumbria, Durham and Northumberland

The most "glam" wellies I could find.  Although silver, not sequinned - but they'll have to do!

I'm so excited to be visiting some beautiful, unspoilt parts of the country during my rural tour.  The tour officially starts in September and confirmed dates are:

28 Sep - Dufton Village Hall 017683 52902
29 Sep - Boldron Village Hall 01833 638210
30 Sep - Armathwaite Old School Hall 016974 72383
01 Oct - The Cheviot Centre, Wooler 01668 282406
02 Oct - Stocksfield Community Centre (SICA) 01661 842346

But before that I'll be performing on 27th August at the Milton Abbey Music Festival for the event "A Little Light Music" in the beautiful village of Milton Abbas, Dorset.  You can get tickets here.

And on 15th September I'll be at the Floral Pavilion in the lovely seaside resort of  New Brigton, Wirral.  Tickets here.

So it won't be long before I'll be donning my wellies and going for some gorgeous long walks.  Can't wait!

How to Plan and Organise a Successful UK Jazz Tour - Lessons Learnt

Thought I'd share some of the lessons I learned from my recent UK tour.  Hopefully you'll get some tips from the things I did in the right way and avoid my mistakes!

CD Sales - Sales were definitely down compared to previous tours.  I did notice an increase in digital sales which was probably also due to the tour publicity but sadly with Spotify and Rhapsody sales which can sometimes amount to less that 1p per track this wasn't exactly a money spinner!  There was also the fact that the CD I was selling was my previous Licorice Kiss album - I did a couple of songs from this album on the tour but the majority was new material not yet recorded.  In hindsight, maybe it's better to tour with a relevant album because with the lack of music stores, sales of albums at gigs are an important revenue stream.

Radio - I was extremely pleased with the level of response I had from radio stations, especially BBC Local radio.  I did 5 interviews in total which is more than I've had from any of my previous tours.  Yay!  All of these I got by sending emails with my press release 3 months before my tour.  Probably also worth following up again just before the tour starts.

Press - Also got some great press which included Jazzwise, Jazz UK and some local newspapers too.  One of the interviews I did (Crawley Observer) wasn't printed which was a disappointment and interestingly that gig was the worst attended.  I wonder if there's a correlation..?  I was also disappointed that there were no reviews but it's so difficult to get journalists to come out to a gig if you're not one of the hot "flavour of the month" musicians/bands or a very established name.  I am neither! 

Finances - In retrospect I don't think I should have had so many door deals because this put a real pressure on my finances and caused me a lot of stress.  Added to this, even with sold out gigs, the door deals were so bad that despite maximum attendance, I still came away with less than £300 for the band.  In future, if there is a door deal, I will make sure that the percentages work out so that the potential revenue makes doing the gig worthwhile.   You need to take account of hidden costs too like money the venue charges for publicity, PRS and VAT!  I didn't make any money on the tour in the end but at least I didn't make a loss which I know many bandleaders have experienced recently as it is only fair to pay the band properly whether you make any money on the gig or not.  It has to be said though, if I hadn't had a bit of help from Jazz Services, I would definitely have made a loss.

Musicians - I'm very lucky to work with some excellent musicians.  It's important to be flexible though because sometimes musicians get offered lucrative tours and are unavailable or there may be unexpected events that means you need to find a dep with very short notice.  Both of these things happened to me but fortunately there were some great replacements and it all went very smoothly.  Definitely important to have a "B list" of musicians on each instrument so that you have someone (who knows your music) to call if your band member is unavailable.

Summary - On the whole, I was very pleased with the tour and extremely grateful for the financial support I received from Jazz Services.  Several sold out gigs and full houses and quite a bit of publicity which all helps with raising the profile.  Now I'm looking forward to taking some time out to write some new songs and also to work on some new projects.  Will keep you posted!

Please feel free to comment or ask questions below and I will help if I can.

UK Jazz Tour - Final Gig 12 - Ipswich Jazz Club

The final gig!  And the last in the run of 4 consecutive nights.  It was great to get to perform with the band for four consecutive nights and felt really relaxed with the material by this time and didn't have to worry about forgetting the lyrics!

Ipswich Jazz Club has been running for many years but this venue is relatively new for them and what a wonderful venue it is.  Well laid out with a bar to the side and quite a lot of space.  It's all run very well too by the excellent volunteers.  Once again we were treated very well the fantastic promoter, Dave.  And also, again the performance was very well attended.  Apart from a couple of the gigs, we've had sell-outs and full houses throughout.  I'm very pleased that so many people came to see us. :-D



The stage (with lovely kitsch "saxophone" light fitting on the left) -
and more photos of the great audience members I met on the night below

Dave on the right and his father, Phil in the white shirt.
Phil was celebrating his birthday that night!

Stephen Foster (MC for the club) who also interviewed me on BBC Radio Suffolk

I had such a great time on the tour and met such lovely people.  I hope the lady I met in Bath wasn't the only one that felt we brought a little bit of joy into their lives - even if just for a short time.  A big thank you to everyone who came out to see us.  I really appreciate the support and hope to see you again sometime!

UK Jazz Tour - Gigs 7 & 8 of 12 - London & Oxford

I became an honorary Pole on 5th March and it was fabulous!  The Polish hostess for the show at Jazz Cafe POSK in Hammersmith was the gorgeous Mariola and we were even treated to Polish cakes during the interval.  And I've discovered a new favourite drink... Zubrowka aka Bison Grass Vodka!   Absolutely delicious served with chilled apple juice.  And I've heard that you can also serve it over vanilla ice-cream.  Double yum!





With the lovely Mariola





George, Milo and Dave tucking into Polish cakes!

 

The audience were lovely and although we had to compete at times with a rather noisy birthday party happening in another section of the room, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves and there were lots of happy smiley faces.




Some of the happy smiling faces

 


Next was a return to Oxford - one of my favourite cities.  Unfortunately I got delayed by an accident on the M40 and although I left London at 4.30pm to get there for 6.45pm, I didn't arrive at the venue until 8.20pm...  Ten minutes before I was due on stage!  Other complications were that I had a call from Milo, the drummer, that day and unfortunately, due to no fault of his own, he was unable to do the gig so we had to get a dep in with very short notice.  Luckily, Charlie Stratford - a local drummer - was available and he acquitted himself extremely well and was a joy to play with!





George, Charlie and Oli

 Joe's Bar & Grill is a another great venue.  It's a shame they don't advertise the music more as with a decor that includes a beautiful chandelier and black and white photos adorning the walls, it has the makings of an excellent jazz club.




Joe's Bar & Grill

 



Lovely Layla and husband
(And more smiling faces)

  

UK Jazz Tour - Gigs 5 & 6 of 12 - Hawth, Crawley & Camberwell Crypt

We're half way through!

The Hawth is a lovely venue.  A proper but cosy little studio theatre with raked seating. Only thing is when I was on stage the audience was in complete darkness which meant I could see no-one at all!  I love to see the faces of the audience while I'm singing so that made it a little difficult but I made up for this by going out and meeting them all during the interval...

The Hawth Theatre

George, Oli and Milo on stage during soundcheck

 

Somr of the people I met during the interval



Brian (a jazz photographer) and his wife.  He took lots of pictures of me during
 the show so I thought it only fair to return the favour!



Me with 2 lovely ladies -  She looks as if she's about to kiss me
but think she was just caught mid sentence!



Taken by a professional - Brian O'Connor



Another photo from Brian O'Connor (See my photo of Brian above!)



Oli was back with us for these 2 gigs and it was lovely to play with him and hear stories of his tour in Ireland with Zoe Rahman.  The promoter also arranged for us to be given a hot meal before the performance.  This seems like a luxury but really it should be a necessity as when we've travelled for hours it can be tough to then have to go out looking for somewhere to get a meal with only minutes to spare after the soundcheck.  And that's not to mention the added cost!  I wish all promoters would consider this.

Then the next day we were in my home town of London for my first performance at the Camberwell Crypt.  I've been to this venue as part of the audience before and always loved it so it was great to be performing there.  Again we had a meal before the performance and I highly recommend the food.  Especially the puddings.  Yum!

What was particularly good about this venue is that it's full of young people.  A real rarity in jazz.  There were more than a hundred people there and the average age definitely seemed to be under thirty.  Maybe we shouldn't be so pessimistic about the future of jazz after all?



The sign says "Welcome To The Crypt"  A bit spooky, no?  Muhahahahaha!




Some of the lovely people at the gig

 

More lovely people.  And the girl on the left has spectacular hair!



UK Jazz Tour - Gig 1 of 12 - The Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon

First of all, you probably noticed that the title says 1 of 12 instead of 1 of 13.  That's because sadly one of the gigs (Derby) got cancelled this week.  :-(  But... it means I get to spend a free day - a mini-holiday if you like - in lovely Northumberland.  So it's not all bad!

Anyway, back to Stratford Jazz @The Chapel.  We arrived after a 2-hour fairly easy drive to be met by a very helpful member of staff who also doubled as the sound engineer. 

The promoter Roy - who does a wonderful job running the club - arrived soon after and they sorted out drinks and food for us whilst we set up and did a quick soundcheck.  If only all gigs were so smoothly run and well organised!  I complimented Roy on his great checked shirt which made him chuckle as he said his wife hated it!

The audience started to trickle in quite quickly and there was a good turnout with all seats taken, and a couple more standing at the bar.  The promoter Roy introduced us and we started our set.

Audience coming in at start of gig

Ryan Trebilcock who was standing in for Oli Hayhurst did a remarkable job.  Especially as he only saw the music 30 minutes before we went on stage.  What a star!



Ryan, George, Milo and me



During the break I chatted with some of the lovely people in the audience  - if any of you read this, please comment so that I can add your name below your photo - and then we were back on for the second set in what seemed like the blink of an eye.



Someone trying to take a photo of me while I was taking a photo of them!




Some lovely audience members




More lovely audience members



The audience called for an encore at the end of the second set and we did a new version (with my own lyrics) of the standard "Let's Do It" which went down really well.  Someone came up to me at the end and urged me to add some more of these types of songs to my repertoire as he believed I had a talent for satirical lyric writing.  Hmm,,, food for thought.

And then there was the lovely lady who, as she was leaving, said to me excitedly that she'd never listened to jazz before but that she really enjoyed our performance.  For me, that's one of the best things someone can say to me at the end of a gig. I feel proud to have attracted a new convert to jazz!  One by one...

Next gig - 14th February @ The Royal Albert Hall, Elgar Room. 

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 - January Playlist

Happy New Year everyone!  Hope it's your best year yet!

Here's the playlist for my January show on UK Jazz Radio which features UK vocalists.

January - The British Invasion (on air from Sat 8th Jan)

Georgia Mancio – Solace (Silhouette - Roomspin Records)

Cleveland Watkiss – Memories (Blessing in Disguise – Polydor Records)

1991

Polly Gibbons – Saving Grace – Recorded live at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London in Feb 2006 (Also available on album Moanin’ – 3D Japan)

Zoe Schwarz & Rob Koral – Devil May Care (Devil or Dove – 33 Records)

Elaine Delmar – I Concentrate on You (Everything I Love: Elaine Delmar sings Cole Porter – Joy)

Ian Shaw – Chelsea Morning (Drawn To All Things: Songs of Joni Mitchell - Linn)

Julia Biel – Where Is She Now? (Not Alone – Rokit)

Zena James – My Love Is (Tell Me More – Jazzizit)

Jazzelation  (Alison Bentley) – Spring Is Such a Beautiful Thing (Spring Is Such a Beautiful Thing – Lytton)

Juliet Kelly – Mutual Attraction (Licorice Kiss – Purple Stiletto)

As you can see, I sneaked in one of my own at the end there - cheeky! 

Juliet Kelly's Vocal Zone - December Playlist

Juliet Kelly's Vocal Zone - November Playlist

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.