Cleveland Watkiss
Cleveland Watkiss ( born October 21, 1959 in London ) is a British jazz singer, actor and composer.
Life and work
Watkiss studied singing at the London School of Singing and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He began his career in radio and reggae bands and recorded with Working Week on ( Fire in the Mountains ). Then he brought Courtney Pine ( Journey to the Urge Within) and Simon Purcell in their combos before he was involved in a co-founder of the Jazz Warriors and their debut album Out of Many People ( 1987). His first two albums under his own name for the Polydor appeared at the beginning of the 1990s.
Watkiss played and sang in the jazz opera Bridge Tower and Shadow Ball by Julian Joseph and Mike Phillips the male lead. With his solo program Vocal Suite and his new quartet he performed internationally. Watkiss has worked with a wide variety of artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Phil Minton / Veryan Weston ( Songs from a Prison Diary ), Carlinhos Brown, Robbie Williams, Joe Cocker, Bobby McFerrin, The Who, Maxi Priest, Soul II Soul, Goldie, Kenny Wheeler, Sugar Minott, Björk, UFO, Denys Baptiste or Pete Townshend.
Prizes and awards
Both in The Wire as well as in the Guardian Watkiss has been consecutively awarded three times as the best jazz singers. In 2010 he won the London Jazz Award as best singer; and the Evening Standard drew him in the same year as the best British jazz singer.
Disco Graphical Notes
- Green Chimneys ( Verve 1989, with Paul Edmonds, Courtney Pine, Jean Toussaint, Steve Williamson, Jason Rebello, Simon Purcell, Becki Musuleku, Paul Hunt, Simon Woolf, Clifford Jarvis, Brian Abraham, Martin France )
- Blessing in Disguise ( Polydor 1991, with Branford Marsalis, Courtney Pine, Keith Waithe, Julian Joseph, Tony Remy, Gary Crosby, Talvin Singh, Claudia Fontaine )
- Project 23 (1996)
- Victory 's Happy Song ( 2001)
- Nikki Yeoh & Cleveland Watkiss Mutual Serenade ( 2003)
- Vocal Suite ( 2010)