As Christmas approaches, Rye international jazz and blues festival is delighted to announce two special festive intimate concerts which will take place at the stunning setting of St Mary’s Church, Rye, East Sussex.
The festival is thrilled to welcome back Mica Paris, one of the UK’s finest and most respected female singers with a career full of top-10 singles and albums worldwide.
Mica will perform her highly acclaimed brand new show Mica Paris Sings Ella Fitzgerald on Friday December 15.
In April 2017, Mica released two tracks to celebrate the centenary of Ella Fitzgerald’s birth. Both Mica and the legendary trumpeter and jazz producer, Guy Barker, have paid a unique tribute to Ella.
Dubbed “The First Lady of Song” Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold more than 40 million albums. Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless.
Mica will be performing this unique celebration to Ella Fitzgerald with her immensely talented jazz musicians and you can expect to hear many of Ella’s wonderful songs that made her one of the most revered singers of the 20th century.
Mica has recorded Imagine My Frustration and Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye, two classics from the Ella Fitzgerald songbook. The full album is in development and is due for release in 2018.
The range, power, and sheer soulfulness of Mica Paris’s singing made an immediate impact on the UK music scene in 1988 when she released her debut, platinum-selling album, So Good from which she had her first top-10 hit, My One Temptation.
This concert is kindly sponsored by Future Climate Info and tickets will sell fast for this special event, so we encourage early bookings.
On Saturday December 16, the legendary and iconic songwriting partnership of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook (above) of the band Squeeze will also perform at St Mary’s Church, Rye.
Christ and Glenn will be performing after a hugely successful sold out Squeeze UK “Join The Dots” tour. Chris and Glenn also join the band on US tour dates in December before making their way to beautiful Rye.
Double Ivor Novello awar- winning lyricist and enigma Chris Difford has brought us characters and sketches from everyday life, turning the mundane into the beautiful, the urbane into the exquisite, for more than 30 years.
With his partner, collaborator, friend and Squeeze co-founder Glenn Tilbrook, Chris has written some of the most enduring and best-loved songs of our time – Up The Junction, Cool For Cats and Labelled With Love, to name but a few.
Chris Difford’s lyrics and Glenn Tilbrook’s music have prevailed through turbulent times over the past four decades, from the ever-changing musical landscape to their own internal reshuffles and an acrimonious break-up.
The At Odds Couple will see Glenn and Chris reflecting on their careers, as part of Squeeze and as solo artists, sharing not only the music but also giving an insight in to what makes the two of them tick as a partnership.
The wonderful band Arcelia (above) will be performing a special supporting performance on the evening and you can expect soulful folk combining guitar, cajon, bass, piano and original songwriting to create a unique sound, with voices that go together like an alchemist’s dream.
Why not get a group of friends together or treat someone special to these unique concerts?
Announcements of the two additional concerts will be made over the coming days.
For more information and to book tickets now for Mica Paris go to www.ryejazz.com
Photo Ian Bowden