“My show is really inspired by 60s and 70s, primetime TV shows, like the Ed Sullivan Show and The Cher Show, so it’s the Georgia Cécile show!” says Georgia Cécile, and isn’t that nice to hear? A proper old school idea of slick entertainment to bring her ultra-chic jazz to life.
She wants to introduce people to “the universe of Georgia Cécile”, and what does this universe comprise of? Well, music, music, music, and some very tasteful presentation. But its music that comes first and what music it is. While she’s certainly one of the rising stars of jazz, her music – mostly recently showcased on her City Girl EP – is hard to classify purely as jazz, when it has such soul and that retro-pop leaning. The cross-over appeal is huge. Take one listen to her tunes, and indeed one look at her videos, and you’d think she was raised in Vegas. Actually, she’s from Glasgow.
“I was a born performer,” says the 33 year old, “I have a really big family and they all play guitar, they all sing, everyone would gather at my gran and grandad’s house every weekend – he would play the piano and she would play the accordion. They would be singing George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin”.
With such early schooling in the classics, she later pursued a music degree and started to take songwriting seriously, inspired by the likes of Motown and in a reaction to the X Factor and “that fast food music generation.”
I was a born performer
Learning her craft, she started gigging in Glasgow, and guesting on jams with older musicians, whilst also studying YouTube clips of Nancy Wilson, Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra; “I spent a lot of time looking at his delivery, how he holds a room, even down to eyebrow movements when he’s delivering a ballad”.
Eventually she moved down to London and started hanging out at the North London Jazz Collective, Ronnie Scott’s, meeting musicians and feeling out the scene. A band around her, “from all corners of the earth, it’s very multi-cultural which you could only get from the big city.”
All this dedication to the scene brings serious depth and integrity to her universe. But again, the songs come first and these tales of love and wonder are as easily accessible to casual listeners as hardcore jazz fans. Yet you get the sense that the real way to enter that universe is to see here live. She says of her performing style, “Billie Holiday always said, ‘if you as a singer almost cry, your audience will cry. If you almost laugh, your audience will laugh.’ It’s a hyper-state of presence.”
As for the future, she has her eye on big Christmas show at the Royal Albert Hall, and also a Bond theme: “I would love to write a Bond song. If anyone knows the producer, give me a call.”
Georgia is playing Ronnie Scott’s on June 17. Tickets available online.
