Todd Gordon

Todd Gordon is a singer and entertainer from Scotland, United Kingdom. He was a Beatles fan until the age of eleven when he first listened to Frank Sinatra's seminal "Songs for Swingin' Lovers". Gordon's first-ever visit to a major jazz concert was in 1973 to see Duke Ellington performing at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. His second was on April 11, 1974 to see Ella Fitzgerald at The Apollo in Glasgow. Recently, the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation included Gordon's off- and on- stage encounters with Ella Fitzgerald.^[1]

Gordon collected every album by Sinatra before broadening his interest into jazz and many other renowned singers and instrumentalists.^[2]

Over a 20-year period Gordon immersed himself in The Great American Songbook and would acquire a repertoire of well over a thousand songs. In 1975 he met Ella Fitzgerald. He was also fortunate to meet Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Count Basie, Woody Herman, George Shearing and Tony Bennett. His primary interest in music was as singing type which was passionate yet private. In 2000 he participated in a week-long vocal jazz workshop that would change his performance approach. One year later he performed at Scotland’s best jazz club. In 2003 he was booked to open for Dionne Warwick during her UK tour and subsequently gave up his "day job" as an exhibition organizer to perform full-time.^[3]

Gordon has performed at various UK venues such as London's Pizza on the Park, Ronnie Scott's the 606 Club in Chelsea and the Pizza Express in Soho. In the US he performed at The Plaza and Algonquin hotels in New York as well as jazz festivals and concerts. He was the first Scottish male jazz singer to have been booked for the London Jazz Festival with his appearance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The venues range from intimate jazz club settings to large-scale shows such as Jazz on a Summers Day, Britain’s largest jazz event with an audience of over 20,000 people.^[4]

Gordon has appeared with the BBC Big Band and in joint concerts in the UK and US. He also developed a following in South East Asia after one of his recordings was licensed as the theme song for a TV series.^[5]

Gordon has recorded three albums with producer/singer Ian Shaw: Love’s Illusions^[6] (with Alan Barnes and Bruce Adams) and Ballads from The Midnight Hotel with musicians Guy Barker, John Parricelli and a duet with Jacqui Dankworth. In January 2009, he had released a retrospective CD of the American Songbook composer Johnny Mercer. Entitled Moon River to the Days of Wine and Roses it was also his collaboration with the pianist John Colianni who was once an accompanist for Mel Tormé. Gordon's latest album is Helping the Heroes,^[7] a big band album with the Royal Air Force Squadronaires, which will aid the British charity Help for Heroes. This album was released worldwide in spring 2013 under the name Evergreen.^[8]

Gordon recorded a fifth album in Seoul with Korean musicians entitled "Love dot com" released in 2013 and toured in the UK, Europe, the Far East and Israel in that year.^[9]

Gordon also began a concert promotion business in 2008, Jazz International, to promote jazz artists in Scotland’s leading music venues.

In 2011, Gordon started his weekly syndicated radio show, "Todd's Turntable" which is broadcast internationally^[10] and in 2015 was commissioned by BBC Radio Scotland to write and present centenary programmes on Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.

References

External links

• Official website
• Todd Gordon on All About Jazz