Multi award-winning jazz vocalist Claire Martin O.B.E. joins the internationally acclaimed B.B.C. Big Band for a celebration of the legendary leading ladies – Big Band Divas, including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee and their contemporaries at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on Tuesday 19th November.
Born in Wimbledon, South London, Claire Martin was born to sing. Growing up in a house full of music, she loved Judy Garland and learned all her songs by the time she was 12. But it was hearing Ella Fitzgerald’s legendary Song Books that changed her life inspiring her to go to Stage School and then to study singing in London and New York. A further seminal moment came at 18 when she saw the great improvising singer Betty Carter at Ronnie Scott’s. It confirmed what she already felt – she had to be a jazz singer.