Fame, and all that jazz

FAME is a funny thing and something with which jazz singer-songwriter Clare Teal is coming to terms. It is weird, she admits. "I drove back from a date in Edinburgh the other day and there was no food in the house so I went to Safeways and saw my CD on the shelf. I couldn't stop looking at it."

Being recognised isn't a big problem, despite appearances on Parkinson's TV show. "A lot of people don't know who I am, although I'm quite well known on the jazz scene," says the Yorkshire-born performer. "It's very funny the few times I've been stopped - it's like in the toilets at the Festival Hall or by the toilet cleaner in Waitrose."

Teal is "just having a fantastic time". That's partly because mainstream success has come when she's a little bit older, at 31. "I'd made three albums. I was making a living from music, which I had always dreamed of doing, and never expected any more," she says.

"I was always ambitious but not for fame and money. I never expected it in all honesty."

A deal with Sony Jazz and a new album, Don't Talk, have changed all that. The temptation is to call her a female Jamie Callum, as she been receiving as much media attention as he has done in recent months. She could claim to have "discovered" him, having recommended him to Candid Records after hearing an early demo of his music.

One of her biggest fans is chat show host Michael Parkinson. She's appeared on both his BBC Radio 2 programme and ITV1 show. He even invited her to play at his local pub. "I don't think any of the young jazz players could have done without him. He's just been fantastic and, luckily, has this platform where he can give people a chance to do what they want to do," she says.

Teal is taking this all in her stride. She's currently touring theatres and concert venues, including York Grand Opera House in November, but will still appear at Darlington Arts Centre as she has done for the past three years. Despite her new-found fame, she sees no reason not to continue going there. "It's important to carry on going there. It's a lovely place, a small auditorium but I love it," she says.

Just as when the Sony deal broke, she was back at her mum's church for a special concert. "It was one of the most moving experiences of my life, with these people I hadn't seen for ten years or more," she says. "This guy was supposed to get up and do a speech, a man I've known all my life. He said he'd like to welcome me back and let me know they were very proud of me. He mentioned Sony and the whole room went up in this unashamed, unabashed, 'Yeah'."

She comes from the small village of Kildwick, about four miles from Skipton, on the North Yorkshire/West Yorkshire border. She doesn't intend to forget her roots. "If you are from Yorkshire, you are from Yorkshire forever," she says.

She discovered jazz as a child. "I was seven years old when I fell in love with a Dansette record player and a trunk load of 78s," she recalls. "It wasn't even jazz - more Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Sinatra - a lot of big band music. Then, when I was eight or nine, I heard Ella Fitzgerald. I thought it was different but that music always spoke to me and I loved it. I spent years listening to it. Pop music, I just didn't get, but was very aware I shouldn't tell people that."

She kept quiet about her new-found musical interest, concentrating on learning the clarinet. "My folks knew I was musical but no-one knew I could sing because it was a very private thing. I used to do it when everyone was out or very quietly. It was a special world for me," she says.

At 16, she knew she wanted to study music at university and needed another instrument. She set about learning to play the piano in two years. "I started singing at university and was amazed I didn't feel nervous or self-conscious. I might have seemed quite outgoing but was quite shy behind it all," she says. "I didn't know what to do then, so I got a jazz trio together and did a few gigs. Then I was a session singer and used to do cheesy jingles.

"I didn't know how the music industry worked. I retired at 23 and got a proper job, selling advertising in small magazines and newspapers. Doing that, 99 per cent of your day is rejection, so you can handle that in music too."

After several years, she realised an office job was not for her. A telephone call asking her to stand in for an ill singer at a gig proved the impetus she needed to quit her job and become a full-time jazz musician.

"It was not until I was 26 or 27 that I could guarantee the voice would come out when I opened my mouth. I had three or four singing lessons, but being a clarinettist helped me the most," she says.

She was in regular contact with Sony Jazz executives, having sent them her first demo tape. They offered advice but lacked the money to sign jazz singers because they were unfashionable. The rise of Jamie Callum, with whom she recorded a duet on her second album The Road Less Travelled, has helped change all that.

Teal may say that "jazz isn't the four-letter word that it used to be" but is equally aware that many people her age regard jazz as a big turn-off "because of their preconceptions of weirdy-beardies in pullovers playing Stranger On The Shore or something so weird you couldn't get into it".

Jazz, as far as she's concerned, "is not rocket science but a very sophisticated kind of music that makes people feel good". The fact that they're buying more of it reflects the way society is going.

"People are ready for real instruments, real voices. However much you think Pop Idol shows are rubbish or horrible, those poor artistes are having to sing live week in, week out. It's a bit like the talent shows of the '30s."

When she became a full-time musician, she was able to concentrate on writing her own songs. She'd never had the confidence before, paying tribute to reviewers like Dave Gelly, who made each of her earliest recordings CD of the week in his column. "If it hadn't been for people like him at the start, giving that endorsement and encouragement, I wouldn't have carried on," she says. "Before jazz was trendy, you could have knocked on as many publishers' doors as you wanted. Now it's funny because, with the deal, all of a sudden they ring me."

Despite her Sony contract, she feels the future is an unknown quantity. "It's not like Jamie. You can't follow the same blueprint. They went for the youth market, my audience is older. I'm never going to be on Top Of The Pops or appealing to that market.

"It was interesting in the first week of release of the new album because they were wondering whether it was going to chart. I told them my audience was not going to rush out to buy it, that they'd buy it when they go out as usual to do the shopping."

* Clare Teal appears at York Grand Opera House, on Sunday (tickets 0870 6063595) and at Darlington Arts Centre on December 3 (tickets 01325 486555). Her album Don't Talk is released on the Sony Jazz label.