That’s right, folks – I’m now doing a solo gig every Sunday night, at the Gipsy Hill Tavern in deepest darkest south-east London.  This is my first residency playing piano as well as singing – think Norah, think Carol, think that woman off Ally McBeal – and I’m absolutely loving it. Almost as much as Justin Timberlake did the Big Macs.

So please come down any Sunday between 8 and 10pm for what is roughly a ratio of 35% jazz to 50% pop (by which I mean: not jazz. By which I mean: songs by the likes of James Taylor, John Mayer and Eddi Reader*) to 15% originals. It’s lot of fun. At least 100%.

*Yes, I am a fiftysomething trapped in the body of a thirtysomething.

So join me and special guest co-host Karen Lane, fellow south-east-London-dwelling jazz diva, for a night of music-sharing and laughter. Especially when my favourite Debarge track is played.

In Chicago it was the proprietor of, and singer/pianist at, The Underground Wonder Bar, Lonie Walker. Who, on being introduced to me as a jazz singer, said: “Welcome home”. Mind you, I think she says that to everyone. Lonie and her band were wonderful, playing mostly blues – and as I found on my last night, at The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge (former speakeasy and haunt of Al Capone), the blues really are all-pervasive in Chicago. And when it comes down to it, there is nothing more that one could want for than an essentially simple form played brilliantly by great musicians (at the Green Mill it was the fabulous Kimberly Gordon Organ Trio).

Which leads me very nicely on to Richard Hawley’s gig at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire…

As a jazz musician, it is very easy to be hung up on the complexity of music. Writing my own songs now, I am almost worried about presenting a song to jazz instrumentalists when, say, it consists almost entirely of four chords.

But the blues is, in its simplest form, three chords. And Bruce Springsteen gave us three chords and the truth. And, I’ve realised, some of my favourite recordings have just two chords.

Such as Jackass, by Beck. Or Remorse Code by Richard Hawley – which he played at the gig on Monday night. Remorse Code, it seemed, consists of only two chords. But what chords! And I don’t even remember it building, particularly; the band simply played the same two chords over and over… But it was absolutely beautiful.

I’ve realised that I am, and always have been, about mood and feeling over complexity. And I don’t just mean in my personal life. Not that mood and complexity are mutually exclusive, of course – great jazz standards survive because they make us feel something, not just because their chord changes have inspired musicians over the years. But frankly (Mr Shankly*), complexity may impress me but it doesn’t necessarily move me, and I think that the primary point of music is to communicate and to move. Music exists to make us cry, or remember, or dance… to make us feel joy or sadness. To feel something. And sometimes it just takes two chords – or, hell, one – to do that. Mind you, it had better be a good one, that one chord.

Hawley and his band were, in short, superb (as was the sound at the SBE. It’s a sadly rare thing to be able to make out the lyrics of unknown songs at most venues; and each instrument was both clear as a bell** and perfectly balanced with the rest in the band). And, interestingly, at the first song, I found myself having the same reaction to him that I did the first time I saw Madeleine Peyroux live. Namely, that it is slightly discombobulating to hear a voice that is so familiar from recordings emanate from an actual body. Discombodulating, if you will. This feeling passes after a few minutes, however, and suddenly, it isn’t just The Voice you’re hearing, but the whole person. (And I’m sure this is a particularly strong phenomenon the first time one sees a person perform live whose voice is quite so beautiful and distinctive as Hawley’s, say, or Peyroux’s).

And finally: during the encore, Richard Hawley introduced the top-secret female singer he’s been writing songs for… please put your hand together for… Lisa Marie Presley! Cripes. As I said to a friend, in that momentary pause between him saying that he’d been writing songs for a female singer and actually revealing her (top secret) name, a few people’s names whizzed through my brain (Amy Winehouse? Erm, someone else?) and I can safely say that Lisa Marie Presley’s was nowhere on the list. And how was she? Well, she had a lovely, deep voice, but you couldn’t make out any of the lyrics; and she gurned a bit, and didn’t look at the audience – clearly because she was very nervous. Which is fair enough, really. I think if I were Elvis Presley’s daughter, I’d be pretty scared about opening my mouth to sing, too.

PS. Also great this week: Joan As Police Woman. Although I was unfortunately burgled while out at that gig. Now, if only the police were out there fighting crime instead of making music all the time, eh?

*seemingly a four-chord song
**especially the bell

Off to Chicago tonight, for a long weekend which will no doubt include checking out much blues and jazz. That’s right, I’m in America, not Brockley – and you can follow my adventures here on Twitter. Well, I say ‘adventures’. I did stroke a stingray.

Because I used to sing backing vocals on it when she first started to perform it live.

Because it’s being launched on Friday 4 September with a gig at Pizza Express Dean Street and is probably going to be played a lot on the radio.

Because she got a 4-star review in The Guardian. (Sarah, love: if you’d kept me on backing vocals, I could have got you that extra star.)

But mostly: because it rocks.

It’s the first themed concert I’ve done  – and obviously while I don’t sound like Ella, I hope to at least do justice to some of her best-loved repertoire, as well as her lesser-known recordings.

All the details are below – if you’d like tickets, you can get them on the door, or get in touch with me and I will reserve how many you would like.  Cheers!

Andrea Mann (vocals)
Nathan Hassall (saxophone)
Paolo Losi (piano)

present

The music of Ella Fitzgerald
and Ben Webster

St. Luke’s Church, Queen’s Park Road, Brighton, BN2 0GG

Concert starts at 7:30pm, Tickets £6 (£4 concessions)

Performing the music of Ella Fitzgerald and Ben Webster, this classy jazz trio will emulate two of the most creative musicians in jazz during its golden swing period. The famous pairing of Ella’s sublime vocals and Ben’s effortlessly cool saxophone ad libs can be found on many classic albums from the 1940s and ’50s, and so for this concert the trio will perform timeless classics composed by the likes of Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and George Gershwin. For more info please visit: www.stlukesconcerts.webeden.co.uk.

1. I have been tweeting a lot. Here. Graham Linehan describes why Twitter has captured my heart here. Janet Street-Porter annoys me here. As I realised (after my initial scepticism), there must be something in Twitter, given the many funny, interesting and erudite people using it. In fact, JS-P’s point that “teenagers have already sussed Twitter is crap and aren’t taking it up” struck me as rather strange logic – because surely the fact that Twitter has been abandoned by teenagers means there really must be something in it? Namely, that it’s full of funny, interesting and erudite people? Yes, some twitterers describe the sandwich they’re eating. But most twitterers don’t, or they describe the sandwich they’re eating in an amusing way.

2. I have been writing songs like a songwriting demon. Thanks to My New Notebook, which helps to make any rush hour Tube journey in London bearable, music and lyrics have been pouring out of me. At one point this week, I was worried that my lyrics were far too obvious, that I express my emotions far too obviously… But then James Taylor came on my iPod, singing – nay, instructing me to – “Shower the people you love with love/Show them the way that you feel”. Which struck me as both a) an example of a very obviously expressed emotion, and b) a call to arms to express one’s emotions in an obvious way. Thanks, JT!

3. I had my summer holiday, ie. two nights in East Sussex. I crave two weeks lying by a pool in the Med so much that it is practically a physical ache, but the life of a poor musician/freelancer means that you can’t take time off without losing money – as well as spending it – so that Greek/Italian/Balearic idyll will just have to wait til some other time. In the meantime, here are the photos from East Sussex. Camber Sands was lovely – although surprisingly busier on a Saturday in August than it was on a Tuesday afternoon in February, which was when I first fell in love with it – and Rye was so twee that I almost vomited up my cream tea. Oops! I did get to swim in the sea, though. And make my wrist ache using a mallet to hammer in a windbreak. Which, when you put those two things together, surely constitutes an ‘activity holiday’.

4. Music-loving-wise: I bought tickets this week to see Joan As Policewoman and Richard Hawley, who are both playing London in October. Current favourite song being played on loop is ‘You And I’, off the new Wilco album (and featuring the wonderful Feist); new favourite album is Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison; new old-song-suddenly-remembered-and-rediscovered is ‘LA County’ by Lyle Lovett;  and favourite song on MySpace for the past few months and continuing to remain so today is Bob Schneider’s 40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet). Joyous, optimistic, funny, romantic and adorable, and as hooky as something the Trotters would sell you. Maaahvellous.

5. I am now wearing my hair in a centre-parting. And when I say that, please imagine Penelope Cruz or Alexa Chung as opposed to Wednesday Addams or Neil from The Young Ones. Because clearly I am channelling old-school glamour/sexy rock chick as opposed to goth/hippy. I hope.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. Hope all’s good with you out there.  If you want to know what I’m up to on a more regular basis, you know where to find me. Sorry, Facebook. It was never going to work…

What is doubly inspiring about my singer-songwriter friend is that she isn’t some slacker bohemian type doing all the above things while bemoaning her lot or not achieving her ambitions; she is making a huge success of herself. She is confident, and focused, and driven as well as hugely talented – and her drive and hard work is paying off, as she gets fantastic gigs and reviews, and continues to move up the music food chain.

As she touches on jazz – working with jazz musicians, playing some jazz venues and having jazz and blues influences in her music – her music is sufficiently like mine, and yet not like mine, to be inspiring as opposed to competitive. That said, it wouldn’t matter if she *was* a jazz singer. I don’t feel competitive with other jazz singers; I feel inspired by the great and successful ones (note: these two things are not necessarily related) as they spur me on to be great and successful myself. Plus as far as I’m concerned, if everyone is doing their own thing, why in any way are we competition? Everybody offers something unique, their own voice, their own take on life. Or hopefully we do, if we’re doing it right.

I’ve got slightly distracted here . What I actually wanted to write about – to update you on – was my own songwriting.

‘Yosemite’, the only original on my first album, was the first proper song I’ve ever written. Sure, I’ve dabbled before – but I’ve never produced, let alone recorded, a fully fledged song before. People had asked me if I was going to put an original on the album, and initially I’d said no (it’s a particularly daunting prospect – verging on hubris, it felt – to write a song when you’re going to be recording ones by the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jobim, and Paul McCartney ). But as I thought more about it, I realised there was no harm in trying – I could at least attempt a song, and if I wasn’t completely embarrassed by it, put it on the CD.

My starting point was wanting to write what James Taylor calls ‘a fake bossa nova’ (that’s how he once described ‘On The Fourth Of July’). I had been listening a lot to the wonderful album by Luciana Souza, ‘The New Bossa Nova’; and I guess I did the musical equivalent of ‘write what you know’. I knew I wanted to write a gentle bossa nova. And so I did.

Since I recorded and performed ‘Yosemite’ – and got such lovely feedback on it – the thought of writing more songs has been there in the back of my mind; but it is probably a combination of living with an inspiring creative person and falling in love (note: these two things are not related) that has led me to properly sit down at the keyboard over recent weeks and come up with ideas.

And they’ve been coming.

As a result, I suspect the next album could be half originals, half covers. Also as a result, I’ve realised that a) if I had started this process years ago, chances are I would now be a Sarah Bareilles-style singer-songwriter-chick-at-the-piano, rather than a jazz singer fronting a quartet; and b) I have been listening to much more pop than jazz recently.

The songs which I’m writing right now have jazz sensibilities, certainly; but there are stompy, pop-style piano chords in there, too; and I realise that listening to Steely Dan, Madeleine Peyroux and Melody Gardot on loop over recent months – all of whom would be described as jazz-crossover artists rather than jazz artists – has clearly influenced what’s coming out of my fingertips and mouth. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course – I love that kind of music, and it makes me feel like I am getting even closer to finding out what *my* music is – but it has led me to wonder whether I should be listening to more bebop right now .

That said, Madeleine, in particular, is constantly inspiring. I was lucky enough to get tickets to see her at the Roundhouse on my birthday last week, and in her understated, musicianly, one-of-the-boys performance (not to mention the similarly inspiring, though slightly less understated, one from her support act, Imelda May), she reminded me of why I do this. It is the best job in the world, bar none, to make music for and with people. And to see the crowd go crazy for her, as she quietly and modestly made the music that appeals to her, simply reinforced again the belief that I just need to get on and make the music I want to make. Whether that’s stompy pop or gentle bossa nova.