Bringing bebop to the Beach Rotana hotel in Abu Dhabi

Q&A: The British Jazz singer Anita Wardell is a world-renowned improvisational scat singer. The BBC Jazz Award-winning artist released her album Kinda Blue this year. She is set to be one of the highlights of the Abu Dhabi Jazz Festival, which begins on Friday, at the Beach Rotana Hotel.

Anita Wardell plays Abu Dhabi on Saturday.

I have received quite a lot of recognition for bringing a certain facet of the genre to the fore. What people get from me is the art of singing bebop, because it is usually done on instruments. It's basically fast flurries of notes and improvisations over chord changes. I do it with vocals but you would usually associate the style with the saxophone or something. I scat and improvise, plus I also write lyrics to all the great solos that have been before. A few people do it, but I'm probably one of the major exponents of it.
I think that these days lots of things come under the broad label of jazz. People have fused so many different types of music together, you've got world, Latin and folk-inspired jazz to name three styles. For me, Norah Jones is jazz with a dash of country. Although she's not a purist jazz singer, I still enjoy listening to her music. There is a thread of jazz running through it and she has helped to popularise it, which helps people like myself who are doing the real, pure thing. It's good that there are some big names, I suppose the downside for a lot of jazz artists is that it is quite an anonymous business.
I know that Natalie Williams is playing. She's a good friend of mine and a fantastic performer. I used to teach Natalie many years ago. She has a great jazz foundation, but she has also fused in more funky, soulful elements. She's very well rounded in her music and a brilliant performer. The people that I will be playing with are all brilliant musicians in their own right.
You would be very surprised. It's such a vast country and there are so many fantastic musicians that there are a few major jazz clubs in each area. Jazz is really on the map out in Australia at the moment. It's just like anywhere else. At the start of my career, I started sending my cassette tapes to certain venues. Then I got asked to perform and, as the reception was really positive, asked back. Because I was very into scat singing, I was quite a novel child. There weren't many people doing scat, apart from a veteran called Joe Lane, who was also known as the Bebop King. He never really got any recognition. He was quite an eccentric, a fantastic bebopper and inspired me a lot in the early days.
Every song on my album has the word "blue" in the title, that's why I gave it the name. Miles Davis's record is a real, quintessential album - I would hate anyone to mistake what I've done on Kinda Blue to be a tribute, which some people might think it is. The album that I've made is basically a selection of songs that I have been listening to for years and years and years, that I love and haven't had a chance to record until now.
Anita Wardell, Beach Rotana, Saturday, 9pm, Dh200
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