Ian Shaw - Shine Sister Shine (2018)

He represents an intriguing figure, one who is content to sit outside the mainstream despite having the necessary attributes to make it as a mainstream entertainer. Shaw is also an accomplished pianist and a raconteur with a ready and salty wit. Something of a polymath he’s been an actor, comedian and an Alternative Cabaret entertainer. In jazz terms he’s also a highly skilled improviser who sings with great technical facility and is prepared to criss-cross genres and take musical risks. Shaw is also an artist with strong political convictions who is a trustee of the Side By Side With Refugees organisation. He has done much to raise public awareness of the refugee crisis and has been a frequent visitor to the camps in Calais.

Since making his recording début in 1990 Shaw has enjoyed a long, varied and fruitful career working with musicians and vocalists from both sides of the Atlantic including the late, great American pianist and composer Cedar Walton. A frequent award winner he has been named ‘Best Jazz Vocalist’ at both the BBC and Jazz FM Jazz Awards as well as being nominated in the Downbeat Annual Readers’ Poll in the US.

“Shine Sister Shine” represents his fifteenth album as a leader and is a semi-conceptual affair that pays tribute to the women who have had an influence on his life and his music. The album includes songs by celebrated female performers and songwriters alongside a clutch of Shaw’s own original songs. In addition to his other talents the man is also a highly talented and evocative songwriter. It’s an album that takes its inspiration from both art and politics, celebrating the former, despairing at the latter – the refugee crisis, the election of Trump etc.