Fiona Ross is a jazz artist extraordinaire. Her impressive talents include producer, musical director, composer, arranger, session musician, choreographer, director, dancer, actor, and model. She is also a jazz journalist, interviewing notable and renowned jazz artists.
She began her classically trained musical journey at the age of two with dance, drama, and singing lessons; piano lessons at age 6. Fiona would go on to star in London’s West End at age 8 and performed as a solo artist at jazz clubs throughout London at 14.
Besides music, Fiona has a passion for educating and training young people. For almost nine years, she was Head of the British Academy of New Music, London, where she trained Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora, and Jess Glynne among others.
You can learn more about Fiona by reading our in-depth interview with her, here.
Fiona’s latest release is The Live Sessions, a live video album that evolved when her gigs were canceled due to COVID. She missed playing and working with her musicians and wasn’t able to live stream with them due to the restrictions. She booked her rehearsal studio as soon as it reopened and got together with her musicians to play. The new project was born when she decided to film the sessions. The end result is an album of 8 raw, live performances of songs chosen from her previous albums each done in one take.
I recently interviewed Fiona about creating the live sessions video album, what had inspired her, the production process, her favorite photographer for the sessions, being able to play live after 5 months, how she chose the songs to perform, and much more.
Congratulations on your live sessions video album release. What do want people to take away from it?
Thank you! Well, I guess I want people to remember what live music is like – going to gigs and seeing musicians play and enjoying ourselves. I also just wanted to share something with the amazing people that support me and hopefully make a few people smile and have a little bit of fun. It’s nothing fancy, just me with the incredible people I am so lucky to work with doing our thing. But while I can’t do any live performances, I wanted to give people something.
Why did you decide to do this project?
Well, due to COVID, all my gigs were cancelled and venues shut, so I was really missing performing and working with my musicians. Although I could have live-streamed something, just me and my piano, it’s playing with the incredible musicians that I work with that I miss and I couldn’t do that from home, due to all the restrictions. As soon as my rehearsal studio opened up – with social distancing restrictions of course – I booked it and decided to get everyone together and just play. Decided it would be nice to film it and it just ended up evolving into a new project. But honestly, I just wanted to play with everyone again.
How did Eric Alper inspire you to release the videos as a live session video album?
Ha, well that one is quite simple. I was talking to him about the live sessions videos and what do with them. I explained that I had eight live versions of songs that I could release separately, keep me going for a while and he just said, well why don’t you release it as a visual album, like a video album? So I thought, yes, why not!
Describe what it was like to play together with your musicians after not being able to for 5 months due to COVID.
Do you know, I’m not sure I can find the right words. It was like coming home. None of us has seen each other or played together so it was quite the reunion. Nothing makes me happier than seeing other people smiling.
It’s something I have realised more and more since all the lockdowns. It was exciting, fun, incredibly emotional, and completely exhausting.
Why did you choose the Premises Studio in London to record the live sessions?
This is the studio I always use for my rehearsals, so as soon as they opened up, I booked it immediately. I love it there. Everyone is so helpful and supportive and it feels like a second home to me in many ways. So many wonderful times there. It also has such a rich history with so many amazing musicians rehearsing and recording there, it has a good feel about it.
Why is Steven Tiller your favorite photographer, and why did you ask him to capture the moments of the sessions?
There is quite the story with Steven. I have known him for many years, back in my teaching days, although he wasn’t actually one of my students, he was in the department I led. He has worked with me on a few sessions now and it always amazes me how he captures the true beauty of the moment. And I’m not talking about photos of me, but the beauty around me.
It captures the truth of the moment -whether that is a smile or a raw emotion. His work is wonderful. He was the natural choice for this project as I knew he would be able to capture the energy and love in the room after us not seeing each other for so long.
What are your favorite moments from recording the sessions and why?
The banter. I had forgotten how much I love that. Silly conversations we have that make us all giggle and laugh because goodness knows we need that at the moment. We giggled about all sorts of things from Dave’s (trumpet player) fabulous shirt to Derek (bassist) fear of mosquitos. I cannot explain how much I love working with these people. But not just my musicians, the behind the scenes crew too. Elliot and Warren, who were the production team, were amazing. I have known them for many years, but this was the first time we have worked all together on a video project. The talent in that room was astounding. But it is so much more than that. They are all good people, you know? Genuine. Real. Passionate. Decent. That is what is about for me. Common goals in life. I am extremely lucky.
Explain the production process for this album.
Well, Elliot Richardson and Warren woodcraft were my production team and as soon as I got them on board we started talking about ideas and feels – they got quite excited. It was about creating something very real and raw, as it was going to be live, and having a live performance feel while not pretending it was a gig. I always love black and white, but I knew that some of the songs would be more suited to colour – and the room we were in looks lovely in light, so we talked through different colour schemes, which for me, is always going to be blues and purples.
I didn’t want to keep doing takes, so it was agreed, we would film each song on the first take – if this was a gig, we wouldn’t get a few goes at it, so I wanted to do the same.
The post-production took ages, although that was all down to me and some of my insecurities, along with the normal editing processes, you know, choosing colours, etc. There was far too much focus on me – which I completely understand – but for me, I wanted there to be more focus on everyone else, so there was quite a bit of backward and forwards with that, ha.
How did you choose the songs from your previously released albums for the sessions?
I actually just chose the songs that I knew everyone enjoyed playing, making sure everyone had a solo and also some songs that I knew were fun to listen to. I also chose songs that we tend to do when we are gigging. Unfortunately, we did run out of time, so there were two songs we didn’t do. But for example, ‘The Evidence Suggest’s is one of my guitarist Gibbi Bettini’s favourite to play and you can completely see that in the video when he plays. I love singing ‘I Don’t Want It’, although it’s very depressing, it’s a song I really enjoy performing.
Why did you add some brass into some of the songs? Which songs were they and what was the result?
I love my brass sections! With my first album, I had no brass and for the second only a sax on a couple of tracks, but for my last two albums I have had more and more Brass, I love it. So when I am gigging now, I have trumpet and sax, so it was so good to put trumpet and sax to a couple of my older songs – Without You and Too Many Thoughts. I love working out brass parts and it added a wonderful new layer to the songs. I’m all about the layers. Writing brass parts – and then hearing them – is one of the favourite parts of making music for me.
What was so extraordinary about recording ‘Doing My Thing’ and ‘Touch Me, You Make Me Feel So’ for the album?
These are two of my most fun songs to perform and when I play these at gigs, they are the two songs that actually get people up and dancing – which doesn’t happen at Jazz gigs very often. ‘
Doing My Thing’, has become a bit of an anthem for me. It seems such a simple thing to say ‘doing your thing’ but it can very hard for some people and the barriers we can face are significant. So I hope that people hear this song and the catchy phrase, and maybe remember that we can all do our thing if we believe we can.
I did a rare sing a long thing (doesn’t happen in Jazz) at an acoustic gig before lockdown, just me and my guitarist and I had everyone singing ‘doing my thing’. It was honestly, so wonderful to see everyone smiling and having fun.
Do you foresee turning this video album into a live physical or downloadable album in the future?
No, although I did think about it. I decided that the audio-only is missing something. The whole vibe of this project was the live performance element and when you listen to the songs, it loses something – well, for me. Also, we hadn’t played for months, so this is quite raw and would have been technically better if we had rehearsed, which I am fine with when you can actually see it. It has made me think about doing a live session audio album though and it’s definitely something I will do, probably next year. I do love performing live.
Keep up with Fiona Ross here: Website | Spotify Artist Page | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Facebook
Watch ‘The Live Sessions’ Video Album on YouTube here.