Zara McFarlane: a bit of Billie, a touch of Ella and some big beats

She grew up wanting to be a session musician, but a Mobo win this week and a date at the London Jazz Festival confirm Zara McFarlane’s star quality. Now she’s putting some electronica into the mix, she tells Jane Cornwell
It’s emotional: “If people can relate to the feelings of joy, anger or hurt in what I’m singing about then they become involved,” says Zara McFarlane
Jane Cornwell27 October 2014

Anyone who has seen Zara McFarlane perform will understand why she walked away with the Best Jazz Act Award at this week’s Mobos. Opening her shows almost unaccompanied, her expressive voice swoops and tumbles through a wordless scat. Then, with her high-quality quartet behind her, she delivers a set of smart and silky soul-jazz originals, songs that tell of everything from trouble and heartbreak to the time she ducked behind the supermarket fruit-and-veg counter to avoid an ex’s new girlfriend.

“I try to write songs that will affect people on an emotional level,” she says. “If people can relate to the feelings of joy, anger or hurt in what I’m singing about then they become involved.”

The next chance to see her do her thing is at Rich Mix in Shoreditch, as part of next month’s London Jazz Festival. As well as singing her own songs, the 30-year-old covers classics, such as Nina Simone’s heart-rending Plain Gold Ring and Junior Murvin’s reggae classic Police and Thieves, rearranged with delicate piano and a low, thrumming jazz bassline. Both tracks feature on McFarlane’s well-received second album, If You Knew Her, which was released earlier this year by DJ Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings, the same hipper-than-thou label that released her 2011 debut, Until Tomorrow.

At the Mobos she beat Jason Rebello, Phronesis and her pianist Peter Edwards, who leads his own formidable trio, to win an award that she dedicated to her fans, friends, family and band, and plans to keep in the music room-come-office of her flat in Essex. “Gosh,” she said, resplendent in a strapless wine-coloured gown, her hair up in her trademark braided chignon. “Thank you so much for supporting jazz music.”

Later, she tells me: “I’ve been thinking of exploring rhythmical elements from the Caribbean for my next album and this award has definitely given me more confidence to keep doing what I love. I’m feeling very lucky right now, also because I’m with a label that has given me freedom from the start.”

What Peterson saw in McFarlane, he says, was “this young woman from Dagenham with a world-class voice. Her eloquence, clarity and diction are really peerless. Don’t be deceived by that restrained exterior; still waters run deep.”

McFarlane laughs at this, smoothing her plaits, long when they’re not wound around her head, over her shoulders. “It took me a while to get it into my head that I’m an artist in my own right. I grew up wanting to be a session singer because of the variety, but then I ended up doing more and more lead vocals” — with Gary Crosby’s ska-themed orchestra Jazz Jamaica, and the house music project Bopstar — “and here I am.”

Her dynamic tone has drawn comparisons with Sarah Vaughan and her phrasing takes its cue from Billie Holiday. “Jazz is exciting because it’s so many things. I love traditional jazz with the swing and the live band. Then I love the way jazz is always pushing boundaries, incorporating new aspects.”

The daughter of Jamaican parents, McFarlane grew up with a strong awareness of her heritage, in a family where the church and an extended family played parts. “Us kids would put on plays, tell stories, sing and dance at parties,” she says. “There was always laughter, always music.”

Her childhood was soundtracked by reggae and R&B (“Aside from The Real Me by Patti Austin, a jazz album of my mum’s I was addicted to”); aged 14, she kickstarted her career with a turn on the now defunct ITV talent show, Stars in their Eyes, with an impression of Lauryn Hill. Two years later she enrolled at the BRIT School in Croydon with the intention of pursuing musical theatre but moved on to postgraduate jazz studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

“I love musicals,” she says. “Lion King. West Side Story. Hair. When I realised that many of the songs in musicals are in the jazz repertoire, I started listening to the great jazz singers; you can’t beat Ella Fitzgerald for technique. I ended up gigging with my teacher’s band, singing standards like Night and Day, Cry Me to the Moon and Love Me or Leave Me in restaurants and hotels.”

For the London Jazz Festival, she says, she has a set planned that she’s never done before, “mixing the acoustic jazz with the other housey electronic stuff that I do”. More than that, though, she isn’t saying. “There will be surprises.”

Zara McFarlane plays Rich Mix, E1 (020 7613 7498, richmix.org.uk) on November 21 as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival

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