Tina May, jazz singer who won glowing reviews for her many recordings and the warmth of her live performances – obituary

Tina May, who has died of a brain tumour aged 60, was a jazz singer, actress, lyricist and teacher.

As a singer, her repertoire was both wide and personal, made up of songs which, as she explained, she had to “inhabit” before she could sing them. And we the listeners could hear this happening in front of us as she sang, bringing each song to fresh and often surprising life. Along with this came a closeness and warmth that was pure “Tina”.

She was born in Gloucester on March 30 1961 and grew up at Frampton on Severn in a musical family. Both her parents were amateur pianists who also bought records, her father’s favourite being Fats Waller and her mother’s, Frank Sinatra. Tina, whose given name was Daphne (the same as her mother), took up the clarinet.

She attended Stroud High School, followed by Cheltenham Ladies’ College, where she studied the classical bel canto vocal technique, which, she said, became the basis of her later jazz singing. Her mother died suddenly while Tina was still at school; the shock made her consider her future seriously for the first time. Her father thought that something more academic than music would be sensible, and she settled upon taking a degree in French at the University of Wales, Cardiff.

The degree course included a period in Paris, where she took to sitting in with bands at jazz clubs and enjoying the buzz of it. While there, she met Rory Bremner, impressionist, satirist and a fellow student. Together they worked up a revue act and took it to the Edinburgh Fringe. Back in Cardiff she kept up the jazz while becoming a founder member of the Back Door theatre company.

In 1989, in London, she married the drummer Clark Tracey and also decided to concentrate on jazz. Her first album, Never Let Me Go, came out in 1992. It was the first of 19 to be released by the independent label 33 Jazz, the final one being 52nd Street, a collection of songs by Duncan Lamont, released last year.

There are no embarrassing early efforts in Tina May’s discography. That first one is near perfect and the quality never drops, the result perhaps of a late start, but more importantly of a sympathetic record label. She recorded equally excellent work for Linn and Hep, two Scottish labels.

Among the recordings of which she was proudest was her Ray Bryant Songbook (2006). Although not a world-famous name, Bryant was a pianist held in high regard by jazz musicians, a man who had played with everyone, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. He also wrote attractive tunes, to which Tina added lyrics.

She recorded 13 of these with Bryant and a hand-picked band at a jazz holy place, Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The album received glowing reviews, as much for her clever, witty words as for Bryant’s brilliant playing.

But the pianist with whom she had a lasting and almost magical accord was Nikki Iles. It went far beyond singer and accompanist. There was a curious atmosphere surrounding everything they played together, a kind of wistfulness, even in the liveliest numbers. It is there in their first album, Change of Sky (1998), and everything that followed.

Her love of France and its language gave rise to albums such as Jazz Piquant (1998), Tina May Live in Paris (2000) and Tina May Sings Piaf (2011). It also led to a remarkable venture, a bilingual production of the American musical, Lady in the Dark. It had been first staged on Broadway in 1941, starring Gertrude Lawrence and Danny Kaye, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin.

For this production, the dialogue was in French and the songs in English. Who else could have played Lawrence’s leading part and sung Gershwin’s lyrics, including the show’s only lasting hit, My Ship? The show toured opera houses throughout France in 2009.

Amid an impossibly busy life, Tina May found time to teach at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Welsh College of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire and several other institutions.

Tina May was divorced, and is survived by a son and daughter from her marriage, and by her partner, Simon Spillett.

Tina May, born March 30 1961, died March 26 2022