Clare Teal sings standards by Fitzgerald and Garland with style. Tim Hughes is all ears

She is one of our best-loved jazz singers, but Clare Teal only discovered her vocal talents by happy accident.

As a budding clarinetest, she turned up for a college music exam having forgotten her instrument. The only way out, she says cheerfully, was to sing. To her surprise, the examiners were blown away. Clare’s career as a singer had begun.

“I didn’t know I had an exam and didn’t have anything to play,” she grimaces. “My piano playing was pretty poor so I had to accompany myself. I played Angel Eyes and Satin Doll, but while I could play the chords, I couldn’t carry a tune. I thought I’d die but didn’t. It all felt so natural. It was liberating and it opened up a whole new world, and I like to say I never looked back.”

Clare’s love of the big band sound started early. While other girls her age were obsessing over pop stars, the teenage Clare hid away in the loft of her Yorkshire home listening to music from her grandparent’s generation — American big bands of the 1930s and ‘40s. It’s a passion which has remained, and which enthuses her today as a singer and radio presenter.

“When I was a tiny kid my first musical love was big bands, and from eight to 18 I lived in a limbo world where I would escape up to the attic in a very small house in Kildwick in Yorkshire.

“I had an old Dancette and a pile of dusty 78s and I’d lie up there listening to these songs played by big bands, like Joe Loss’s, or people like Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. I lived it for 10 years — and it would come in useful. All these years later it’s what I do for a living: singing those songs and talking about them.”

She admits that even then she was far from cool, and hid her passion from her pop-loving friends through fear of ridicule.

“I had to tread a careful path and didn’t tell my friends,” she laughs. “I subscribed to Smash Hits for appearances and had pop star pin-ups on the wall, but I’d also cut pieces out of the Radio Times about the music I really loved. I also had an old cassette recorder and would sit up close to the telly and record old black and white programmes with a microphone. The sound quality was interesting.”

Her love of music took her to Wolverhampton Polytechnic — scene of that fateful music exam.

“I had to learn a new instrument every term and know my way around a recording studio,” she says. “It’s stuff I still use every day of my life.”

Her rise to stardom followed another unexpected event — having to stand in for singer Stacey Kent at a music festival. Her performance saw her signed by jazz label Candid Records and her label debut That’s The Way It Is was released in 2001. After two more hit albums, Orsino’s Songs and The Road Less Travelled, she was signed by Sony in what was the biggest recording deal by any British jazz singer. The resulting album, 2004’s Don’t Talk went straight to the top of jazz chart and reached a respectable 20 in the UK album chart.

She has gone on to perform at the Royal Albert Hall, has supported Liza Minelli at The Royal Festival Hall and performed alongside Gary Barlow, Sinead O’Connor, Elaine Paige, Jamie Cullum and Mick Hucknall and has recorded songs for the legendary Pee Wee Ellis. Plaudits have also come thick and fast, with awards including British jazz vocalist of the year in 2005, and 2007, and BBC jazz vocalist of the year in 2006.

Her success has led to regular appearances on television and, more importantly, radio where she is best known for presenting BBC Radio 2’s long-running Big Band Special alongside the BBC Big Band; a show which was axed last month.

Now 40, Clare is also a familiar voice on BBC2’s Friday Night is Music Night, Sunday Night at 10 and this year’s After Seven with Clare Teal. Last Sunday she launched an extended two-hour Sunday night programme, again showcasing her favourite tunes from the 1920s to the present day. It all comes hot on the heels of a new album, And So It Goes.

She still finds time to pursue a hectic touring schedule, which tomorrow sees her performing at the Cornerstone in Didcot. The show, dubbed The Divas and Me sees Clare singing tunes by her heroines, women like Judy Garland and Doris Day as well as her beloved Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee, alongside her band led by pianist and musical director Grant Windsor.

“I sing songs by people I love,” she says. “The music spans 100 years. I also sing my own material; it’s wonderful to see it come to life from my pen to the band getting hold of it.”

Yet, she says, the show is heavily weighted towards the standards. “I’m not going to argue with Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and Van Morrison,” she says. “Their songs are timeless. Music comes in and out of fashion, but there is something about big bands. It was the pop music of its day. Those golden years of the big band will never happen again. There were so many great musicians working on recording complex arrangements and the public lapped it up. And it still sounds great.”

Clare lives in Glastonbury with her partner Muddy Fields — the two women running the MUD record label on which Clare’s albums are now released. And while enjoying her career, she admits none of it was planned. “I didn’t do this in an X Factor sense of wanting to be famous,” she says. “It’s hard work and a lot is unglamorous, but it’s a great job.

“There’s a lot going on in the Teal camp at the moment,” she goes on. “Sadly Big Band Special is no more though. People did like that programme but there just wasn’t the money. Big bands have suffered since their inception because of their size, and they are closing down all over the place. They are expensive to tour but are worth every penny as they are amazing.

“I do have my new show though. From a one hour pre-recorded programme I’ve moved to two hours of non-scripted radio, so of course I’m nervous.

“But it’s a new era. I never thought I’d be on the wireless, but then I never thought I’d be a singer either!”

Clare Teal

Didcot Cornerstone

Tonight (Friday), 8pm

Tickets: £14.50, concs £13

Visit cornerstone-arts.org