Joanna Eden
London, England, United Kingdom
Music
Press
Singer-songwriter-pianist with melody, mystery and bite.
Eden once haunted smart jazz joints mixing freshly arranged standards and offbeat originals, as captured on her 2000 debut A Little Bird Told Me. Now, My Open Eye is a surprising collection of self-penned post-motherhood songs, revealing her haunting music as perhaps closer in spirit to Beverley Craven than Betty Carter. The opener, Singing Out, sets the tone: a plaintive piano arpeggio, a voice as clean as dry sherry and the verse (“There goes my true love/He’s walking on water/There goes his new love/She could be his daughter”) pulling the rug immediately, beauty and broken glass all at once. I Cry mourns the Iraq episode with heartbreaking modesty, and deserved to be Number 2 at Christmas. Elsewhere there’s love and guilt, joy and restlessness, naivety and wisdom co-existing in Eden’s alluring ouvre. For those whose favourite part of a martini is the olive.
- Mojo Magazine
JAZZ Joanna Eden Quartet Live! On the Park, SW1
Jack Masserik
Can nice girls rise to the top? Consider RAF bandsman’s daughter Joanna Eden, the very English artist on duty here last night. Confident and charming, she plays good piano, writes sharp-witted, well-crafted songs and sings them sweetly and with conviction.
Moreover you won’t find her staggering out of some West End casino at 4.30am. This lady has a family to run, including her husband and drummer Charlie and their musical daughter.
Candid originals from her new 33-Jazz album, Moving Shadows, covered topics ranging from old flames (Have you met my Beautiful New Wife?) to her mother (Can’t Get Anything Past Her), her husband (Smoke and Drink? Not until I Met You) and depression (Get Thee Behind Me). Solid caberet fare, you might think, but her delivery of jazz themes (Midnight Sun, Nature Boy) were equally strong.
Her solos blended well with Julie Walkington’s fine walking bass and the bluesy elequence of guitarist Jim Mullen, a guest star guaranteed to raise the creative bar.
“Jim’s not on the new album because we felt his playing needed a little more work”’ quipped Ms eden as Jim contritely slapped his wrist. “Actually,” she added, “we couldn’t afford him.”
Last year Joanna shared a charity event with overnight superstar Jamie Cullum. With some steely image adjustment her turn may come, too. It couldn’t happen to a nicer person. - London Evening Standard
Discography
MOVING SHADOWS 33JAZZ149 Released May 2007 on 33Jazz Label. Features Charlie Price on drums and Julie Walkington on double bass. A collection of jazz standards and 60s pop - given the "Eden Treatment"!
MY OPEN EYE MRM2013 Release Date May 14 07 on Mr Riddles Music Label. A self-penned album featuring Jim Mullen on guitar, Mick Hutton on double bass, Charlie Price on drums, Dan Boutwood on guitar, Al Tsentides on bass, Jonathan Radford on Flugelhorn.
Radio airplay so far: BBC RADIO 2 and BBC RADIO 4 Woman's Hour and BBC LOCAL RADIO
A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME BBJ2012 Released August 2000 on Black Box Label. A collection of Eden originals, standards and “jazzed up pop”.
Features Alan Leggett on trumpet, Charlie Price on drums, Scott Noftle on bass, Julie Walkington on double bass, Alison Neale on Flute, Francesco Cavalier on guitar, Dan Boutwood on guitar and Luke Annersley on Tenor Sax.
Photos
Bio
http://www.joannaeden.com/
The over-whelming response to Joanna Eden’s self-penned album My Open Eye has led to support slots for Jamie Cullum, Nerina Pallot, the Blockheads and the legendary Buena Vista Social Club. Her newly raised profile has brought about a distribution deal, new management, BBC Radio 2 airplay, a live performance on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and some serious press [Mojo:- “melody, mystery and bite!”] My Open Eye had it’s nationwide release in April 2007. With active support from supermarket chains Waitrose and Tescos, Joanna’s feet have hardly touched the ground!
Recently Eden's been collaborating again with songwriting partner and guitarist Ian Wilson (co-writer of More Than This) and they are currently to be found in the studio working on Joanna's fourth album; working title "Falling Out of Grace". Last year saw Joanna performing in Berlin, Moscow and Cyprus and she is co-writing a new album with German producer Kaijo.
Cambridge based singer-songwriter Eden dedicated “My Open Eye” to her family, especially daughter Drousha. I started working on “My Open Eye” when she was 10 months and I was just emerging from that hazy bubble of new-motherhood! The whole album was a kind of therapy – finding “me” again and re-defining the world through the eyes of a mother.”
For the daughter of a professional musician and a drama teacher and writer perhaps becoming a singer/songwriter was an obvious step but it didn’t always feel like joining the family firm “I know my Dad really worried about my career choice, he probably had visions of me starving in some garret. I wrote the song “Father’s Day” (on Eden’s first album “A Little Bird Told Me”) about those emotions.
“A Little Bird Told Me” also features five original songs which were welcomed by the media (Michael Parkinson instructing his listeners to “seek this one out”) and reviewers (“a Martini-cool voice with something of the cookie wisdom of Rickie Lee Jones and a song-writing style to match” Mojo).
At the urging of a Radio 2 producer, Joanna also released Moving Shadows in 2007 on the 33Jazz Label; an album of covers mixing classic 60s pop (Alfie, Let’s Stay Together, Yesterday) with jazz standards (The Midnight Sun, Nature Boy, A Night in Tunisia). Moving Shadows has a simple jazz trio line-up with collaborators Julie Walkington on double bass and Charlie Price on drums and percussion.
Links
