Kristian Lees-Bell

Kristian Lees-Bell didn't take the obvious route into jazz. Nobody handed him a conservatoire place or a family connection to the scene. He found his way in through curiosity, and a willingness to start from scratch.

Working as an expat in Shanghai, he began studying vocals with Steve Sweeting, a former Harvard jazz professor and pianist, and discovered, almost by accident, that his voice was made for this music. Three years of workshops, jam sessions and late nights at the JZ Club, one of Asia's most respected jazz venues, gave him something you can't manufacture: a feel for the music that goes all the way down.

Back in the UK, he built his career the honest way,performing across private events, corporate occasions and festivals with the seven-piece Boogie Bumpers swing band and through his own jazz duo, Tall Order. Those gigs taught him how to hold a room, how to read a crowd and how to make a song land. Tall Order has performed at venues including the RAC Club London, Chewton Glen Hotel and Buckingham Palace during the Coronation celebrations.

His musical world is shaped as much by soul and funk as by jazz tradition. He loves the emotional raw depth of Donny Hathaway, the storytelling warmth of Gregory Porter but what really fires him up is the direction artists like Kurt Elling are taking jazz right now. The groove-driven, funk-infused adventurousness of Elling's SuperBlue project is exactly where Kristian wants to live, taking modern material and letting it breathe again, reimagining songs that weren't written as jazz standards but sound like they always were. That's the sweet spot: contemporary feel, genuine swing, real soul.

A performance at Highclere Castle (yes, the Downton Abbey one) led to Julian Fellowes pulling him aside afterwards and asking if he had a London agent. He didn't. He's working on it....

That moment, alongside growing connections with some of the UK's finest musicians, led to the most significant session of his career so far: a live recording at the 606 Club in London with bassist Lawrence Cottle, pianist Jim Watson and drummer Ian Thomas with the support of Claire Martin OBE. The session captures a contemporary take on the Nancy Wilson classic 'Save Your Love For Me' alongside a bold reworking of D'Angelo's 'Spanish Joint' - the combination saying everything about where Kristian sits as an artist.

Now building a London presence alongside his South of England base, Kristian performs solo, as a jazz duo or with a quartet, available for jazz club residencies, premium hotel engagements, private events and corporate occasions across the UK and internationally.