Biography

'Soulful and exuberant' (Time Out) vocalist Mark Jennett has been a regular on the London jazz scene for the last few years with appearances at the Vortex ('regulars lapped it up' - Evening Standard), Smollensky's, Octave, the Bull's Head and other leading venues.

With influences ranging from Mark Murphy to Billie Holiday his perfectly controlled voice subtly reinterprets standards and more contemporary material with warmth, sensitivity and unstoppable swing.

Born and raised near Cambridge, Mark grew up singing along with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and watching Hollywood movies on TV - an experience which now explains his uncanny ability to remember the verses of countless standards. An early career as a boy soprano came to grief when he realised that no one looks good in a surplice.

Mark has sung at the Vortex, the Spice of Life and Pizza on the Park and worked with such musicians as Robin Aspland, Barry Green Jeremy Brown, Dave Green, Mick Coady, Tristan Mailliot, Dave Wickens, Issy Postill, Alison Rayner and Malcolm Earl Smith. He appears regularly with Carol Grimes and has recently formed his own quartet which made its club debut at the Vortex in July 2006. A second Vortex gig in November 2006 was followed by appearances at Smollensky's on the Strand, The Octave and the Bull's Head, Barnes during Spring 2007. He has performed at countless functions and corporate events, sung for his supper everywhere from Pizza Express to Alton Towers, and recreated those childhood Sinatra fantasies with the London Swingfonia and John Ongom big bands and the Mid Herts Jazz Orchestra.

His influences include all the aforementioned as well as Mark Murphy, Shirley Horn, Sarah Vaughan, Lester Young, Anita Wardell, Ben Webster, June Christy, Etta Jones, Kurt Elling, Miles Davis and Ray Charles.

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