16th January 2023: BBC Jazz Award Winner Anita Wardell and Australian Jazz Pianist Dave McEvoy have just self-released the first single 'Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?' through the distribution company, Distrokid, from their up-coming album “Stars”. You can now hear this track on most platforms including iTunes, Spotify, YouTube andmore. Anita and Dave will continue to release some more singles before the whole album comes out.

'Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?' available here

Having known and performed with each for many years, they decided in May 2022, to record a duo album exploring love and loss; the vulnerability of human experience; and the vast expanse of sky that can at once liberate you or bring you undone.

Anita and Dave released the album in Melbourne, Australia on Dec 8th 2022 with a live performance at the Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival. The album “Stars” is set to be released in the EU on the 29th April 2023 with a performance at the amazing Birdland Club in Hamburg, Germany. There will also be performances of this project in the UK.

Stars features some beautiful re-worked jazz standards and some originals including a dedication to the late, great British jazz singer Tina May.

How the record came about…….

The idea for the record originated in late April 2022 when Dave and Anita got together around the piano and talked about what we each wanted to convey with the music. “A connection with our respective authentic selves, our vulnerable selves, was something we both wanted so, we set about describing to each other, what the lyrics and the melodies represented to us. After ruminating for some time on the colour of the harmony and how it would enhance each song, and the way we heard it, we worked on reharmonising the chords, marrying it all together “

The Recording then took place on May 10/11 2022 at Wizard Tone Studios in Adelaide Australia with the talented engineer Jarrad Payne who totally captured the essence of this set of songs.

Anita, recipient of the prestigious BBC Jazz Award, was once described by Mark Murphy as ‘a gift’. Lauren Henderson (2020 winner of the National Jazz Awards) writes, ‘Anita Wardell is my hero; a world-class storyteller and improviser. Dave McEvoy embodies everything I believe jazz to be—honesty, heart, and playfulness—all the while maintaining impeccable technical command of the instrument. Don’t miss your chance to see two of the greatest living jazz musicians do their thing. It will change you.’