Fiona Ross Quartet, Black Mountain Jazz, Melville Centre for the Arts, Abergavenny, 28/06/2026.

Fiona Ross – vocals, piano, Loren Hignell – alto sax, flute, Derek Daley – double bass, six string electric bass, Warren Woodcraft – snare drum, shaker
with guest; Debs Hancock – vocals

BMJ’s June 2026 Club night welcomed vocalist, pianist and songwriter Fiona Ross together with members of her regular working band, a group that is sometimes expanded to an octet. One number also featured the singing of guest vocalist and BMJ stalwart Debs Hancock.

London based Ross, who is also a producer, educator and journalist has released a total of eight albums in ten years, beginning with 2016’s “A Twist of Blue”. Her latest recording is the double set “Moments in My Notebook” (2025) a collection of twenty one songs that features the playing of Hignell, Daley and Woodcraft, among numerous others, the list of guest performers including former BMJ visitor Hannah Horton on saxophone.

Much of tonight’s material was sourced from “Moments in My Notebook”, but several of Ross’ previous albums were also represented.

Ross had previously visited BMJ in September 2025 for the annual Wall2Wall Jazz Festival. She was there in her role as the curator of the “Her Frame, Her Sound” photographic exhibition celebrating the work of female photographers, and specifically their images of female jazz performers. The exhibition was housed at the Melville during the course of Wall2Wall and was both interesting and impressive. Prior to this “Her Frame, Her Sound” ran for three months at the Karamel arts venue in north London.

As part of the Festival events Ross and locally based photographer Kasia Ociepa, whose work featured in the exhibition, were interviewed by jazz broadcaster John Hellings. To read more about the exhibition and the interview please refer to my Festival coverage, which can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/friday-at-wall2wall-jazz-festival-melville-centre-abergavenny-26-09-2025

Ross’ involvement with the “Her Frame, Her Sound” exhibition was a direct consequence of her work with the Women In Jazz Media organisation which was founded by Ross in 2020 with the intention of creating more opportunities for women and other minorities within the male dominated jazz industry. The organisation has received international support from female journalists based in Spain and the US and its aim is to achieve complete gender neutrality in the jazz community. There may still be some way to go, but personally I think we’re getting there.

Ross talked to Hellings about the practical difficulties of balancing her artistic career with her WIJM work, the latter all being voluntary. Yet somehow she manages to do all that and more, including writing for various publications and hosting her own podcast “Thoughts, Conversations and To Do Lists”, which is also the title of one of her albums. The indefatigable Ross is a force of nature, a whirlwind of energy who never seems to stop working.

In addition to her work as an award winning journalist she was also the Head of the British Academy of New Music in London and numbers pop superstars Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora and Jess Glynne as being among her former students.

During her interview with Hellings she named Oscar Peterson, Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin as primary musical influences along with the world of musical theatre. Something of a child prodigy Ross has been performing from a very early age and studied at the prestigious Arts Educational School. She has variously worked as a musical director, session musician, composer, choreographer, director, dancer, actor and model.

As a songwriter Ross brings a lot of herself to her songs, most of which are autobiographical. During her live performances she explains the circumstances behind the writing of each song, often at considerable length. In the main audiences love this background information, which helps to bring additional meaning to the songs, although there are occasions when she’s guilty of talking a bit too much. It’s a problem that Ross herself is aware of and she strives to strike just the right balance, which, to be fair, she actually manages to do most of the time.

Although billed as the Fiona Ross Quartet most of the show was performed by a core trio of Ross, alto saxophonist Loren Hignell and bassist Derek Daley. Warren Woodcraft, who also works as a photographer and videographer, was featured on some numbers playing a simple snare drum, rather than a full kit, and occasionally wielding shakers.

Things got off to a lively start with the playful and optimistic “I’m Going Travelling”, a song from Ross’ latest album. With lyrics referencing various destinations, among them Scotland, Italy and France this featured Ross’ vocals alongside Daley’s double bass and Hignell’s alto sax, with both instruments also getting a mention in the song’s lyrics and with Hignell adding a concise instrumental solo.

From the 2021 album “Red Flags and High Heels” again featured the core trio and was a break up song with lyrics combining deep emotion with sharp observation.

Daley moved to six string electric bass for “I Don’t Want Money”, a song from the most recent album that was also released as a single. The self referential lyrics addressed the problem of being an artist in a world dominated by money, with Hignell again featuring as an instrumental soloist.

Over the course of her eight albums Ross has written a total of one hundred original songs, a feat that she is justifiably very proud of. This milestone is celebrated in “100 Songs”, another piece from the latest album, the lyrics tinged with regret as Ross’ late parents were unable to share in her achievement. This was a performance that saw Ross moving to the piano and demonstrating her considerable skills as an instrumentalist.

Written specifically for the trio of voice, sax and double bass “Voices Unheard”, another track from the most recent album, represented one of Ross’ most overtly political songs. Inspired by people marginalised due to their gender, race or sexuality, with socially conscious lyrics name checking some of the victims this powerful song was one of the standout performances of the entire evening.

Warren Woodcraft was added to the ensemble for “I Don’t Know”, a song dating all the way back to the “Twist of Blue” album. Featuring Ross on piano and vocals this was a more upbeat, poppy offering featuring Woodcraft on brushed snare and shaker and Daley on electric bass. The presence of Woodcraft allowed Hignell to deliver his most expansive alto solo thus far, with Daley following suit on bass.

Ross’ background in musical theatre was reflected by the first cover of the evening and an inventive arrangement of Charlie Caplin’s “Smile”, which saw her elongating the vocal lines, supported by Hignell’s alto and Daley’s double bass.

An engaging first set concluded with “I Followed My Heart”, a song from the marvellously titled 2019 album “Fierce and Non-Compliant”. The album sleeve features a picture of Ross as a young girl and I’d like to think that the title is a line from an old school report. Another relationship breakdown song this piece was introduced by a voice and double bass duet, with Hignell’s alto sax subsequently adding musical punctuation, before taking the only instrumental solo. Ross described this song as being technically challenging, but it also featured one of her most emotive vocals. Daley featured briefly with the bow towards the close.

Set two commenced with “Pirates in Paris”, another song from the latest album release. Featuring Ross on piano and Daley on electric bass the song’s evocative lyrics were a celebration of two of her closest friends,  jazz author and historian Maxine Gordon (widow of Dexter) and photographer Monika S. Jabowska, one of the photographers celebrated in the “Her Frame, Her Sound” exhibition. Gordon contributes liner notes to the “Moments in My Notebook” album and was also a source of inspiration for “Voices Unheard”.

With Ross continuing on piano the full quartet was featured on the uplifting “When I Think of You”, a song with lyrics celebrating the influence and inspiration of others, including for Ross the inspirational figure of vocalist and broadcaster China Moses.  Moses is also the inspiration for “China Told Me”, another song on the “Moments in My Notebook” album.

From the album “Red Flags and High Heels” the song “I Always Saw The Red Flags” was the kind of song that virtually everybody in the audience could relate to in one way or another. It’s a song about the perils of a romantic relationship doomed to failure,  where one party wilfully ignores all the warning signs or ‘red flags’, with the result being that the relationship inevitably founders. If it hasn’t happened to you you’ll have seen it happen to somebody else. This was another quartet performance, with Daley on double bass and Hignell the featured instrumental soloist.

Guest vocalist Debs Hancock joined the core trio for an arrangement of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “One Note Samba”. A distinctive arrangement featured a slowed down first section featuring Ross on piano and vocals and Daley on bowed double bass, with Hancock subsequently joining to exchange vocal lines with Ross. The tune was then accelerated to a more familiar samba tempo as Daley switched to the pizzicato technique and Hancock took the vocal lead. A highly accomplished vocalist herself she is a popular presence on the South Wales jazz scene and has performed regularly at BMJ as well as helping with the running of the Club. Both Daley and Hignell were featured as instrumental soloists with Hancock also enjoying a scat vocal episode.

Another cover followed with an effective arrangement of the Michael Jackson song “I Can’t Help It”, performed by the core trio with Daley on electric bass and Hignell the featured instrumental soloist.

Hignell played flute for the only time on “Searching For Something I Can’t Find”, a song from the latest album making its debut in the live environment. He did so somewhat reluctantly, but very convincingly, alongside Ross on piano and vocals as part of an effective duo arrangement. This was a song that was less obviously ‘jazz’ than many of the others and which occupied more conventional singer songwriter territory, hence the absence of bass presumably.

Daley returned on electric bass for “27 Reasons”, song from the 2017 album “Just Me (and sometimes someone else)”, a kind of ‘anti-love song’ with a lyric about the protagonist’s determination not to fall in love. This was a quartet performance with Woodcraft wielding a shaker and Hignell returning to alto sax as the featured soloist.

A second duo performance saw Ross teaming up with Daley’s electric bass on “I Don’t Want It”, another song about the perils of falling love featuring the contrasting sounds of Ross’ emotive, impassioned vocals and the smooth, liquid timbres of Daley’s electric bass.

The evening concluded with “Busy…Always Busy” from the 2017 album “Black, White and a Little Bit of Grey”, a semi-conceptual work about the machinations of a classic love triangle. One of the more light hearted items on the album the song was performed by the full quartet, with Ross encouraging the audience to sing along with the titular refrain. Ross featured on piano, Hignell’s sax solo featured some spectacular high notes, Daley was featured on double bass and Woodcraft enjoyed a series of brushed drum breaks.

This had been an excellent performance from Ross and her band but it pains me to say that the audience turnout was pitifully low, one of the poorest attendances at BMJ for many years. The reasons behind this seemed to be a combination of the heat wave, the World Cup and a whole host of known regulars being away on holiday at the same time in an endeavour to beat the August rush.

Those that were present thoroughly enjoyed it and the amount of merch sold in relation to the size of the audience was remarkably high. BMJ’s Mike Skilton felt that it was right up there among the very best shows that he has presented during his twenty years as a promoter.

While I wouldn’t go quite that far I do admire the fact that Ross is a performer who presents her own material and who puts so much of herself into her work. It’s certainly an approach that resonated with tonight’s audience, many of whom relished the stories behind the songs too.

In addition to her abilities as a singer and songwriter Ross also revealed herself to be a highly accomplished pianist. She was well supported by an empathic core trio with Hignell’s alto shadowing and complementing her vocal lines as well as delivering a series of concise and pithy solos. Daley was excellent throughout on both the acoustic and electric versions of his instrument. I’d be interested in hearing his playing in another context. Woodcraft’s contribution was competent but largely inconsequential, while Hancock made a pleasing cameo.

My thanks to Fiona Ross for speaking with me after the show and for very generously gifting me copies of the lavishly packaged “Moments in My Notebook”, which has helped greatly in the writing of this review, and the earlier “Black, White and a Little Bit of Grey”. This was generosity above and beyond and typical of her warm and inclusive spirit.

 

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