LAUREN BUSH - An Abundance Of Treasures
Lauren Bush may not be a name that’s familiar on the wider UK jazz scene but the release of her debut album ‘All My Treasures’ may change that.
Born in Canada and residing in London for the last four years, Lauren is forging her own path towards a career as a jazz vocalist and is driven, ambitious and tireless in her quest for success.
Growing up in a musical household (her father was a jazz trumpet player and her mother taught high school band), Lauren was exposed to the life of a jazz musician from an early age. Allowed by her father to accompany him to gigs in local restaurants and to sing with the band, she developed a love of the stage and began to learn scat solos by heart.
“I absolutely loved memorising scats and vocalese," recalls Lauren, "so the first few times I would go and just duplicate famous scat solos. The best one was Ella's improvisation on ‘Lady Be Good’. It goes on for about 5 minutes. It's ridiculous... now, I think back and roll my eyes at where I started... I'm happy that I've moved on but I can still sing along to the whole scat in that song.”
In high school, in a compromise with her parents, she exchanged her piano lessons for voice lessons yet never performed in public. It wasn’t until she went to university in Texas, joined the big band as their vocalist and got to open for Maynard Ferguson, that she discovered her true aptitude for jazz.
The classically trained vocal coaches that criticised her style choices saying, “You can’t change this music, it’s written that way!” compelled Lauren to explore and experiment with her own scat singing and she discovered a talent for expressing her musicality with her voice. She formed her own jazz quartet and began to gig around Texas at festivals and a variety of jazz venues.
Anxiously keen to pursue singing as a career, Lauren chose to study interior design alongside music – all too aware of the need for an alternative means of supporting herself if necessary. After graduating and moving back to Canada, it seemed there was an even more complementary career path available to her and she trained and qualified as a primary school music teacher.
Soon after her return to Canada, Lauren reformed her jazz quartet, performing at some of the more prestigious locations in her local area such as Hermann’s Jazz Club and Victoria’s International Jazz Festival. On a pilgrimage to the Idaho Jazz Festival she was lucky enough to share the stage and scat with Bobby McFerrin.
Around four years ago, Lauren moved to London with her partner, an actor, and set about establishing herself on the local jazz circuit. Investigating opportunities to ‘sit in’ led her to ‘The Spice of Life’ where she met pianist Liam Dunachie with whom she now shares regular shows and who arranged all of the songs on her album, All My Treasures.
Born in Canada and residing in London for the last four years, Lauren is forging her own path towards a career as a jazz vocalist and is driven, ambitious and tireless in her quest for success.
Growing up in a musical household (her father was a jazz trumpet player and her mother taught high school band), Lauren was exposed to the life of a jazz musician from an early age. Allowed by her father to accompany him to gigs in local restaurants and to sing with the band, she developed a love of the stage and began to learn scat solos by heart.
“I absolutely loved memorising scats and vocalese," recalls Lauren, "so the first few times I would go and just duplicate famous scat solos. The best one was Ella's improvisation on ‘Lady Be Good’. It goes on for about 5 minutes. It's ridiculous... now, I think back and roll my eyes at where I started... I'm happy that I've moved on but I can still sing along to the whole scat in that song.”
In high school, in a compromise with her parents, she exchanged her piano lessons for voice lessons yet never performed in public. It wasn’t until she went to university in Texas, joined the big band as their vocalist and got to open for Maynard Ferguson, that she discovered her true aptitude for jazz.
The classically trained vocal coaches that criticised her style choices saying, “You can’t change this music, it’s written that way!” compelled Lauren to explore and experiment with her own scat singing and she discovered a talent for expressing her musicality with her voice. She formed her own jazz quartet and began to gig around Texas at festivals and a variety of jazz venues.
Anxiously keen to pursue singing as a career, Lauren chose to study interior design alongside music – all too aware of the need for an alternative means of supporting herself if necessary. After graduating and moving back to Canada, it seemed there was an even more complementary career path available to her and she trained and qualified as a primary school music teacher.
Soon after her return to Canada, Lauren reformed her jazz quartet, performing at some of the more prestigious locations in her local area such as Hermann’s Jazz Club and Victoria’s International Jazz Festival. On a pilgrimage to the Idaho Jazz Festival she was lucky enough to share the stage and scat with Bobby McFerrin.
Around four years ago, Lauren moved to London with her partner, an actor, and set about establishing herself on the local jazz circuit. Investigating opportunities to ‘sit in’ led her to ‘The Spice of Life’ where she met pianist Liam Dunachie with whom she now shares regular shows and who arranged all of the songs on her album, All My Treasures.
Having long held an ambition to release her debut album by the age of 30, Lauren seized the opportunity during a vocal coaching session to ask renowned jazz vocalist Ian Shaw to produce it. “I skipped away from our first meeting knowing that he would be such a good influence on my sound and have all the right ideas when it came down to recording", says the singer, "we even recorded at his favourite place: the Cowshed Studio in Bounds Green. Everything about the process came together seamlessly.”
The resulting All My Treasures is a selection of songs (the title comes from Bob Dorough’s ‘I’ve Got Just About Everything I Need’) that hold a special and personal meaning for Lauren. The liner notes include a comprehensive explanation as to how each piece earned it’s place. ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ for example transports her instantly to the times when as a child she would watch The Harlem Globetrotters spinning basketballs to the tune, whilst Jobim’s ‘Dindi’ was a favourite of her father.
On this diverse cross section of songs, Lauren’s distinctive vocal style and Dunachie’s creative and complementary arrangements provide the thread that draws the tunes into a cohesive whole. Producer Ian Shaw’s influence is felt throughout and particularly on the surprising inclusion of Joe Cocker’s ‘Feelin’ Alright’ to which he contributes the backing vocals.
All My Treasures has caught the attention of London based radio station Jazz FM, who has featured ‘Doodlin’ on its playlist. This particular song was included on the album after Lauren met one of her musical heroes–Jon Hendricks at Ronnie Scott’s a few years ago when his daughter spotted her sobbing in awe and invited her to talk to him. Other songs have been received airplay on BBC Ulster, Metromedia Radio out of New York and CBC radio in Toronto.
The resulting All My Treasures is a selection of songs (the title comes from Bob Dorough’s ‘I’ve Got Just About Everything I Need’) that hold a special and personal meaning for Lauren. The liner notes include a comprehensive explanation as to how each piece earned it’s place. ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ for example transports her instantly to the times when as a child she would watch The Harlem Globetrotters spinning basketballs to the tune, whilst Jobim’s ‘Dindi’ was a favourite of her father.
On this diverse cross section of songs, Lauren’s distinctive vocal style and Dunachie’s creative and complementary arrangements provide the thread that draws the tunes into a cohesive whole. Producer Ian Shaw’s influence is felt throughout and particularly on the surprising inclusion of Joe Cocker’s ‘Feelin’ Alright’ to which he contributes the backing vocals.
All My Treasures has caught the attention of London based radio station Jazz FM, who has featured ‘Doodlin’ on its playlist. This particular song was included on the album after Lauren met one of her musical heroes–Jon Hendricks at Ronnie Scott’s a few years ago when his daughter spotted her sobbing in awe and invited her to talk to him. Other songs have been received airplay on BBC Ulster, Metromedia Radio out of New York and CBC radio in Toronto.
The album launched earlier this year at Soho’s Pizza Express in front of a delighted audience. Presented by Ian Shaw, who joined her on stage, the event was the culmination of much planning and attention to detail by Lauren whilst juggling her full time job as a teacher. Although she finds it challenging, Lauren finds much fulfillment in teaching. It has provided her with the stability necessary for her to live in London. It gave her the security to go into the studio and record the album and without it, she would not have been able to afford the best musicians, the greatest studio and an amazing producer.
“I get to share my musical passion with young children which is a great power! I like that I get to influence their musical ears and hopefully teach them something that they wouldn't have known before. Recently, in class, we listened to Snarky Puppy, wrote poems about what we could hear, and then made paintings of what the music made us see. The creativity and ideas that came out of the kids were amazing!” she enthuses.
Lauren can regularly be found gigging in and around London and on Tuesday evenings she has a weekly residency at The Charterhouse Bar in the heart of Smithfield Market. She also maintains a strong connection with La Jazzlife Associazione in Italy where she is often invited to perform with guitarist Luca di Luzio. He spotted her on YouTube after she uploaded a video of herself singing ‘Softly As In A Morning Sunrise’. This was one of her early recordings that helped Lauren make her musical mark in the business and her quartet’s version of the song is still among the top hits for this song having received over 187,000 views.
Lauren continues to work on extending her repertoire and cites many influences from Chet Baker to Cyrille Aimée on her style and song selection. There will be more to see and hear from this emerging talent whose love of jazz performance is equalled only by her desire to push her own boundaries in pursuit of her dream career.
For more information visit Lauren's website.
See Lauren on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFujdGLLczE
Click on the album cover to read our review.
“I get to share my musical passion with young children which is a great power! I like that I get to influence their musical ears and hopefully teach them something that they wouldn't have known before. Recently, in class, we listened to Snarky Puppy, wrote poems about what we could hear, and then made paintings of what the music made us see. The creativity and ideas that came out of the kids were amazing!” she enthuses.
Lauren can regularly be found gigging in and around London and on Tuesday evenings she has a weekly residency at The Charterhouse Bar in the heart of Smithfield Market. She also maintains a strong connection with La Jazzlife Associazione in Italy where she is often invited to perform with guitarist Luca di Luzio. He spotted her on YouTube after she uploaded a video of herself singing ‘Softly As In A Morning Sunrise’. This was one of her early recordings that helped Lauren make her musical mark in the business and her quartet’s version of the song is still among the top hits for this song having received over 187,000 views.
Lauren continues to work on extending her repertoire and cites many influences from Chet Baker to Cyrille Aimée on her style and song selection. There will be more to see and hear from this emerging talent whose love of jazz performance is equalled only by her desire to push her own boundaries in pursuit of her dream career.
For more information visit Lauren's website.
See Lauren on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFujdGLLczE
Click on the album cover to read our review.
