Laura Fygi

Laura Fygi (born August 27, 1955 in Amsterdam ) is a Dutch jazz and pop singer .

Live and act

Tulipa 'Laura Fygi'

The daughter of a Dutch father who was a manager at Philips and an Egyptian mother (a belly dancer, as her record company says), she spent her first eight years in South America, in Montevideo in Uruguay , where the family came from in the late 1960s after her death her father returned to Holland. In addition to Spanish, French is her second mother tongue as she spoke to her mother and had a French governess as a child .

She learned the piano at school and played in theater performances. After graduation, she toured the Netherlands with a limbo band, where she caught the attention of producers Debois and von Asten, who initially wanted to cast them in a multicultural band Terra . From 1984 to 1991 she became a member of the girl band Centerfold, which is popular in the Netherlands, Europe and Japan . A photo of band member Fygi on the Dutch Playboy cover brought her additional attention beyond the series of hits of the band from 1987 to 1991.

After the breakup in 1991 (one of the three band members died), she actually wanted to retire, now married. Nevertheless, she founded the short-lived band The Backlot with the remaining Centerfold colleague , but they only released one album on Mercury , because Fygi had already been suggested a solo career by Mercury Records after she had convinced her manager of her passion for jazz. Her first album, mainly jazz, was Introducing Laura Fygi . She was then accompanied by Toots Thielemans and Philip Catherine and produced by bassist Ruud Jacobs . It won the Edison Prize in the Netherlands in 1991. In the meantime she has released other albums and has earned a reputation as an excellent jazz interpreter . In keeping with her cosmopolitan background, she likes to let Latin American influences feel. But she also effortlessly switches to pop genre on her records (she had a hit with the interpretation of Dream a Little Dream ). Fygi tours a lot in jazz clubs in the Netherlands and has performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival , for example . As she is very popular in the Far East , she also tours there regularly twice a year. With her new program The Best Is Yet to Come Laura Fygi appears with a full big band line-up and interprets songs from the Great American Songbook in arrangements by the Dutch arranger Johan Plomp with the Jack Million Band .

She cites Julie London , Ella Fitzgerald , Peggy Lee , Barbra Streisand , Gilbert Bécaud , Charles Aznavour and Al Jarreau as vocal models .

She is married and lives with three children near Hilversum .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
year	title	NL	Remarks
1991	Introducing Laura Fygi	NL27 platinum (25 weeks)NL	(with Toots Thielemans )
1992	Bewitched	NL33 (21 weeks) NL	(with Philip Catherine , Toots Thielemans , Johnny Griffin , Clark Terry )
1994	The Lady Wants to Know	NL16 gold (25 weeks)NL
1995	Turn out the lamplight	NL35 (11 weeks) NL
1997	Watch What Happens When Laura Fygi Meets Michel Legrand	NL23 (14 weeks) NL	from the North Sea Jazz Festival
2000	The Latin Touch	NL20 (16 weeks) NL	spanish language album
2001	Change	NL92 (2 weeks) NL
2003	Live at Ronnie Scott's	NL87 (5 weeks) NL	recorded in 2002 at Ronnie Scott’s in London ; with Jan Menu
2004	The Christmas Album - The Very Best Time of Year	NL20 (7 weeks) NL
2007	Date	NL30 (8 weeks) NL	French repertoire, inspired by the Hot Club de France , including Django Reinhardt's Nuages ; with Jan Menu
2011	The Best Is Yet to Come	NL28 (5 weeks) NL
2015	25th Anniversary Collection - Fans' Choice	NL86 (1 week) NL
2016	Jazz love	-