Cleveland Watkiss
Cleveland Watkiss MBE (born October 21, 1959 in London ) is a British jazz singer , actor and composer.
Live and act
Watkiss studied singing at the London School of Singing and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama . He started his career in funk and reggae bands and recorded with Working Week ( Fire in the Mountains ). Then Courtney Pine ( Journey to the Urge Within ) and Simon Purcell brought him into their combos before he was one of the co-founders of the Jazz Warriors and was involved in their debut album Out of Many People (1987). His first two albums under his own name for the Polydor were released in the early 1990s.
Watkiss played and sang the leading male role in the jazz operas Bridgetower and Shadowball by Julian Joseph and Mike Phillips. He has performed internationally with his solo program VocalSuite and his new quartet. Watkiss has worked with a wide variety of artists such as Wynton Marsalis , Phil Minton / Veryan Weston ( Songs from a Prison Diary ), Carlinhos Brown , Robbie Williams , Joe Cocker , Bobby McFerrin , The Who , Maxi Priest , Soul II Soul , Goldie , Kenny Wheeler , Sugar Minott , Björk , UFO , Denys Baptiste or Pete Townshend .
Prizes and awards
In both The Wire and the Guardian , Watkiss was named best jazz singer three times in a row. In 2010 he won the London Jazz Awards for best singer; the Evening Standard also recognized him as the best British jazz singer in the same year.
Discographic notes
- Green Chimneys (Verve 1989, with Paul Edmonds, Courtney Pine, Jean Toussaint , Steve Williamson , Jason Rebello , Simon Purcell, Becki Musuleku, Paul Hunt, Simon Woolf, Clifford Jarvis , Brian Abrahams , Martin France )
- Blessing in Disguise (Polydor 1991, with Branford Marsalis , Courtney Pine, Keith Waithe, Julian Joseph, Tony Remy , Gary Crosby , Talvin Singh , Claudia Fontaine)
- Project 23 (1996)
- Victory's Happy Song (2001)
- Nikki Yeoh & Cleveland Watkiss Mutual Serenade (2003)
- VocalSuite (2010)
Web links
- Web presence
- Cleveland Watkiss on Allmusic (English)
literature
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley The Rough Guide to Jazz, London 2004, ISBN 978-1843532569
- Richard Cook : Jazz Encyclopedia , London 2005, ISBN 0-14-100646-3
- Klive Walker: Dubwise: Reasoning from the Reggae Underground . Insomniac Press, London 2005, ISBN 1-894663-96-9 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Watkiss, Cleveland |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British jazz singer, actor and composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 21, 1959 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |