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Claire Martin, OBE (1967, Wimbledon London UK) is an English jazz singer. She grew up in a house "full of music" thanks to jazz loving parents. Her professional career started with her first engagement aged 19 which was singer in a hotel band in Bournemouth. After this she worked aboard the QE2, where she sang in the piano bar for two years.

At the age of 21, Martin formed her own jazz quartet. In 1991, she was signed by the Scottish jazz label Linn Records, and her debut album, The Waiting Game, was released in 1992. T
Martin has since released 17 CDs with the label, collaborating with musical luminaries including Martin Taylor, John Martyn, Stephane Grappelli, Kenny Barron, Richard Rodney Bennett, Jim Mullen and Nigel Hitchcock on many of these recordings.

Martin has performed all over Europe and Asia with her trio and, until his death in 2012, with Richard Rodney Bennett in an intimate cabaret duo setting both in England and in America. 

She has co-presented BBC Radio 3’s Jazz Line Up since 2000 and has interviewed many of her musical heroes such as Pat Metheny, the late Michael Brecker, Brad Mehldau and Andre Previn. Her 2009 CD A Modern Art prompted Jazz Times USA to claim: "She ranks among the four or five finest female jazz vocalists on the planet".

Martin won both the 2009 and 2010 ‘Best Vocalist’ category at the British Jazz Awards and toured extensively throughout the UK, Scandinavia, Russia and China, appearing with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and her world-class trio. 

Martin has recently embarked on a series of collaborations with The Montpellier Cello Quartet. The arrangements were especially written for her by Rodney Bennett, Mark Anthony Turnage and Django Bates, and this new chamber jazz ensemble toured throughout 2014 to promote a new album on Linn Records called ‘Time and Place’ which features singer/pianist Joe Stilgoe who became Martin’s new cabaret partner.

In June 2011, Martin was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for her Services to Jazz.


Claire Martin - Devil May Care - 1993
Claire Martin - Make This City Ours - 1997
Claire Martin - Offbeat - 1995
Claire Martin - Old Boyfriends - 1994
Claire Martin - Perfect Alibi - 2000
Claire Martin - Take My Heart - 1999
Claire Martin - The Waiting Game - 1992
Claire Martin - Time & Place - 2014
Claire Martin - Too Darn Hot! - 2002
Claire Martin & Richard Rodney Bennett - Witchcraft - 2011