Alison Bentley, 1957 – 2023, was a British Jazz singer, composer, singing teacher and reviewer.
Early life and education
editBentley was born in Bolton in 1957, She attended a comprehensive school in Glasgow and studied English Literature at York University where she first performed her own songs. Alison discovered jazz while studying at Oxford where she came to do a PGCE at St Catherine’s College, followed by educational research at St Anne’s. She teamed up with Chris Lavelle, another singer-songwriter, creating vocal harmonies to standards by Gershwin and Cole Porter. She had lessons in jazz guitar from Paul Reynolds. At Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Alison received the jazz knowledge from Simon Purcell, Lee Gibson and others. She also had singings lessons for many years with the singer, Sue Shattock. She had to give up music and academic research when she became seriously ill with what she eventually self-diagnosed as an underactive thyroid.
Career
editBy the mid-80s, now recovered, Bentley was working part-time for the Anglican church as a parish worker while busking and playing pub gigs. She began singing with a student swing band called The All-Night Cat-Food Store, which performed at college balls and student parties. This became The Jazz Menagerie, a function band which she co-led on vocals and keyboards. Alongside performing, she taught jazz and singing at Ruskin College and Oxford Brookes University.
In 1993 Alison contributed two original pieces to a Slam compilation album, Women with Voices - in a quartet with Liam Noble, Dave Jones and Hamish Birchall. She also featured on a third track as a member of the free improv group Ox Vox. Alison Bentley Quartet (1995) comprised Alison on vocals with Jonathan Gee, piano, Dave Jones, bass and Paul Cavacuiti, drums. Saxophonist Mornington Lockett joined them on 4 of the 10 tracks. Some of the compositions had lyrics while on others the voice was used as a fourth instrument, drawing inspiration from Norma Winston and John Taylor as well as Americans, Steve Coleman, John Scofield.
Alison contributed to another Slam compilation, Women With Standards, where she sang her own lyrics to Mal Waldron’s Soul Eyes. In 2002 a second album, The Songs Of Bernstein and Berlin (2002), featured Steve Waterman on trumpet, Martin Speake, alto sax, Dave Frankel, piano, plus Jones and Cavacuiti. For an Arts Council-funded UK tour Alison wrote new pieces for a 7-piece band which included Phil Capone on guitar. The trombonist Annie Whitehead joined the quartet for a British Council-funded tour of Syria and Lebanon. She also performed in Hong Kong with George Haslam and in France with the European Jazz Friends. The soul side of Alison’s voice was the focus of a collaborative project called Jazzelation. The album, Spring is a Beautiful Thing, was launched at the 2009 at the Oxford Jazz Festival. The band included Liverpool-based saxophonist Andor Jensen, Pete Whittaker on Hammond and trumpeter Matt Holland, who joined between stints with Van Morrison’s band. When a friend had to drop out of reviewing a gig, Alison agreed to step in for London Jazz News. To her surprise, she found that she enjoyed the experience. For ten years, her reviews of albums and live performances, along with interviews of jazz musicians, were widely read. She interviewed many jazz musicians including Dianne Reeves, Kevin Mahogany and Courtney Pine.