Ian Shaw, the leading male jazz singer of his generation in the UK, follows up his expertly pitched Joni Mitchell songbook album from 2006 with a brand new album released this month full of original material. The themes of the album, he tells Andy Robson, involve meditations on Shaw’s notions of his own sense of place, the process of growing older and above all, love

Ian Shaw is in typically truculent mood. “What will jazz purists make of Lifejacket? Who knows. Does it matter?” Probably not, because as the singer-songwriter says, if you’re writing original material, taking on influences from your past – and my past is Bowie, Chaka Khan, Joni Mitchell – what can you expect?” So is Shaw making a late break for that elusive cross over audience? “Na-aaah,” he says, laughing. “I’m too old. Even Jamie Cullum’s too old now”. At 45, Shaw hardly qualifies for a bus pass yet but he’s “older than I ever wanted to be, if you believe the lyric from the album’s title song.”

Illustrious as his career has been, with a string of lauded albums, including a couple of classic single voice against a trio-type recordings, some would say it’s pretty late to be releasing your first album of mostly self-penned material. “But as he says, “I’ve always written”. “There’s ‘Broken Blue Heart’ which I wrote for Eddie Reader and nearly re-recorded for Lifejacket, and ‘When Sassy Sings’, which is a bit cheesy, but I like it and ‘Rockabye’.” But perhaps the troubadour doth protest too much. The first two were written for 1992’s Ghostsongs, in collaboration with Adrian York, his long-time keyboard companion, and the latter popped up on 2003’s A World Still Turning. “No, I haven’t written many,” he muses. That is until now, what’s changed to bring this about he’s not sure. “I think years of playing jazz clubs has tarnished me.”

It’s an extraordinary statement from a singer who has flourished and is much cherished within the jazz scene. Indeed, it was a jazz club, Ronnie Scott’s indeed, that turned Shaw’s career around back in the 1990s. While playing there with the altogether more rocking Brave New World, the man himself recognised something special in the raw young vocalist.

“I love that weird mentoring thing. Whatever Ronnie saw in me he knew it wasn’t going to get going without a kick up the arse. He gave me all these songs that I’d never heard of. They sounded a bit pervy to me like, ‘Just Let Me Look At You’ but he just recognised a catch in my voice. He got me ‘The Very Thought Of You’ and was nearly in tears when he saw me do it. Well, in his own kind of way, nearly in tears. ‘I suppose you want paying,’ he said.”

 This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #118 to read the full feature and receive a Free CD Subscribe Here...