Rosa Murdoch | Lander PR
0208 446 8881
BEVERLEY BEIRNE
NEW SINGLE: ‘Too Shy’
RELEASE DATE: 11th MAY
FROM 2018 ALBUM: ‘Jazz Just Wants To Have Fun’
RELEASE DATE: 15th JUNE
Raised on a diet of Jazz and 80s pop, British Jazz Singer Beverley Beirne has combined the two with her latest freewheeling, stylistically expansive new album Jazz Just Wants To Have Fun. Singing with an honest and heartfelt, deep-soul sensuality and scatting with abandon in places that would do Ella proud, she swings both lightning fast and seductively slow on clever and stylish re-imaginings of 12 perfectly chosen 80s hits.
A renowned and versatile performer who has headlined a variety of festivals and clubs throughout the UK, the Yorkshire based Beverley finds meaningful magic – via her alternately witty and intimate phrasing – on songs we didn’t realise we loved so much. She vibes beautifully and riffs powerfully off her pianist and co-arranger Sam Watts, the core trio of double bassist Flo Moore and drummer/percussionist Ben Brown, saxophonist/flautist Rob Hughes and guest guitarists Romero Lubambo (on a sexy, vibrantly salsa-twisted ‘Cruel Summer’) and Dean Brown (rockin’ the Stray Cats-like rockabilly out of ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’).
“It’s raw, energetic and her vocal is both sassy and commanding”. - Limahl
The collection was produced by Grammy winning and Emmy nominated producer Jason Miles, who was playing keyboards and programming synths for Luther Vandross and Miles Davis in the 80s at the start of a career that led one veteran journalist to call him the “Quincy Jones of Contemporary Music”. Miles also adds his illuminating Hammond B-3 to Waiting For A Girl/Man Like You, a wistful, sparsely arranged take on the Foreigner ballad from the female perspective; and Deeply Dippy, a playful, jamming jazz romp through Right Said Fred’s #1 UK follow-up single to their trademark I’m Too Sexy.
“Beverley has a very special album here”. - Grammy Winning Producer, Jason Miles
The irresistible set list, which Beverley culled from an original list of 90 possibilities, includes a sassy swing through Slade and Quiet Riot’s Cum on Feel The Noize; a vocally seductive, piano pounding jam of Prince Charming, Adam & The Ants brazen ode to ‘peacocking’; a stark, vocally astounding, take on Kim Carnes’ Bette Davis Eyes; a fast boiling, scat and sax happy visit to Ghost Town (by the UK ska revival band The Specials); a properly lush and elegant tribute to that glorious moment When Smokey Sings (ABC’s homage to Smokey Robinson); a marvelously scatty, joyfully hip arrangement that magically makes perfect sense of M’s Pop Muzik, a speed limit breaking rhythmic jaunt on Too Shy in which Beverley sings wildly against the rhythm; and a marching New Orleans stomp twist on Billy Idol’s Hot in the City.
“I love the jazz version of Noize…Fab Singer!” - Noddy Holder
Whether you’re an 80s pop fan, a jazz connoisseur or both, you’ll enjoy getting reacquainted with these tunes and will most likely be prompted to listen to the original and Beverley Beirne’s take side by side.
Beverley Says –
“On my first album Seasons of Love, I experimented a little bit with ‘Walk on By’, slowing it down and turning it into a haunting ballad. My thoughts were to make the lyrics more potent. I like finding songs that are not standards and seeing what I can do with them and how I can re-interpret them. I have been influenced by singers like Nneena Freelon, whose interpretations are sublime.”
“Why tackle the 80s? I love the music, yes, but I was there! I know these songs, I know the era, I don’t have to imagine any of it. I lived and was brought up in the post-industrial town of Halifax, West Yorkshire. There was on one hand a depressed air about the town, but on the other a sort of bloody minded determination to have a good time anyway. Life’s short.”
That’s the enduring spirit that inspired Jazz Just Wants To Have Fun.
