Emma Nabarro-Steel - Unphotographable (2009)

Jazz vocalist Emma Nabarro-Steel has spent almost a decade performing and recording jazz standards with many of the UK’s finest jazz musicians. An improvising vocalist and instrumentalist, she has been described as a “a jazz singing natural” and “a fresh jazz singer who floats a song lyric without losing her grip on it” (manchester evening news). Born in Nottingham, UK, and now based in Leeds, BBC Radio 4 bestowed on her the proud title of “Yorkshire’s Ella Fitzgerald” after a 2006 performance on Woman’s Hour. Indeed, her individual tone belies the influence of the ‘great’ jazz singers of the 20th century, not least the fabulous Ella. But musical experiences have been eclectic from childhood, embracing classical music and heavy metal. She is a pianist, and has recorded compositions for voice and piano, as well as being a woefully untrained but everso keen guitarist. She has produced several CD’s, the most recent, Unphotographable, having been released in 2006, shortly before daughter Mia arrived to curtail, for a while atleast, nights spent gigging in far flung venues.