Armorel
Weston
Armorel
Weston was born in Sussex and grew up on a succession of farms, mainly
in Wessex.
At 17 she came to London to become a jazz singer…
That wasn’t what she’d had in mind. Still she made the rounds of the cabarets and night-spots and American bases of Britain and the Continent, singing ‘God Bless the Child’ and ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’ and ‘Twisted’.
(Photograph by Gilbert of Mayfair)
Jazz was in a ferment, and musicians were searching, not only in London, but in Copenhagen, in Barcelona, in Paris… On the Left Bank she sang at the Blue Note with Memphis Slim and met one of the key players of the New Thing, the trumpeter Don Cherry, who introduced her to a legendary figure of the jazz tradition, the New Orleans clarinettist Albert Nicholas (who introduced her in turn to amyl nitrate, a pastime she decided not to take up).
In London, along with the drummer John Stevens, she founded the Little Theatre Club, the first home for ‘free jazz’ in the UK, and a hothouse for many of Britain’s finest improvisers, like Evan Parker, Trevor Watts, Paul Rutherford, Derek Bailey, Barry Guy, Eddie Prevost, Kenny Wheeler, Marcio Mattos.
The glitter of that night-club
grind just wore right off, though, so she cut off her hair and sailed straight
away for a wilder North country where she could not go wrong… 
(Photograph
by Niels Bo Nielsen)
Eventually she turned her back on the city and on the stage and took to the hills, living seven years on the southwestern edge of the Lake District.
When she returned to the concrete jungle, she brought the earth back with her. Her pottery studio and shop was open for 11 years in Islington, until 1992: a real place in an unreal time.
(Photograph by Keith Baugh)
But
the gift of a voice is demanding. In 1992, she began to sing again, working
in partnership with John Gibbens in The Children, composing, arranging
and performing entirely original material.
Maybe things were looking up…
And sometimes when you think of that, it brings a smile.
