Georgia Mancio Quartet with Special Guest Trish Clowes (Hang)
@ the PizzaExpress Jazz Club
12 October 2018

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Biography

In just over a decade of professional work award-winning jazz vocalist, lyricist and producer, Georgia Mancio, has established herself as one of the UK’s most important new artists earning the respect of audiences, musicians, promoters and critics alike with her innate musicality and subversion of expectations. A performer of pure class and integrity Mancio has proved herself a true improviser with an unfailing flow and a capacious imagination.

Her music is an intriguing reflection of her Anglo-Latino background: predominantly a jazz standards singer born and raised in the UK, Mancio’s musical lineage goes back first to her Italian grandparents (an opera singer and concert pianist) and then to her Uruguayan great-grandmother, also a pianist. It is no surprise then to hear the breadth of material covered in one of her shows (from Fats Waller to Kenny Wheeler, Tom Waits, samba, originals, blues, Chilean folk and Italian pop) or the ease with which she switches from English to Italian to Spanish to Brazilian Portuguese. And indeed it is her affinity with language and languages that has been key to her work as a lyricist on compositions by Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Horace Silver, Miles Davis and Osvaldo Farres alongside collaborations with songwriting partners Tim Lapthorn, Kate Williams and Frank Griffith.

Her 2003 debut album, Peaceful Place, was followed by Trapeze in 2008. Last year she released her third album, Silhouette (Roomspin Records), to great critical acclaim and demonstrated her formidable skills as a writer (including an approved lyric to the Pat Metheny classic, Question and Answer) as well as her truly individual interpretations of jazz standards and Latin American song. She has performed with jazz legends Bobby McFerrin and Sheila Jordan; played several residencies at the renowned Ronnie Scott's (opposite Monty Alexander, Steve Smith, Cedar Walton, Jason Rebello, Ray Gelato, Lee Ritenour, Dave Holland's Overtone Quartet and Joey Defrancesco) and toured extensively in the UK and overseas. In 2005 she won first prize at the Brussels International Young Jazz Singers’ Competition and at home her live performances have garnered 4 star reviews from both The Standard and The Guardian. She continues to collaborate with the much-acclaimed singer-pianist, Ian Shaw, as well as Frank Griffith’s Nonet, Brazilian outfit Samara and award-winning guitarist Nigel Price (a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass). She has also secured an enviable reputation as a producer curating a highly prestigious annual Voice Festival, ReVoice!, at The Pizza Express Jazz Club with artists including Karin Krog, Maria Pia de Vito, Rebecca Parris, David Linx, Norma Winstone, Gregory Porter, Diana Torto, John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler. Most recently she performed with pianist Darius Brubeck (featured on BBC Radio 3's Jazz Line-up) and at The Art of Song Festival supporting Earl Okin.