This is Hip - The Life of Mark Murphy - Peter Jones
That's When It Bit Me
This is Hip - The Life of Mark Murphy - Peter Jones
Peter Jones [+]
Jazz singer and journalist
Peter Jones is a jazz singer and journalist based in London.
He read English at St Peter’s College, Oxford, and after a brief sojourn at the University of New Mexico he returned to England and began working as a pop music journalist. After a decade as a film and TV publicist, during which he was the researcher for the autobiography of Spitting Image founder Roger Law, he gained an MA in Film and Television Studies from the University of Westminster. Until 2015 he taught film and media at a variety of London colleges, and published a short book on black cinema (BFI Publishing), followed by a handbook for Media and Film students (Hodder Arnold).
For several years he played bass in a jazz sextet, before deciding to concentrate on singing. At around the time of his first album (‘One Way Ticket to Palookaville’ - 2013) he developed a serious interest in the work of Mark Murphy, which has continued ever since. He began working for London Jazz News, reviewing concerts and CDs, and conducting interviews, including one with Kurt Elling in 2015. His second album (‘Utopia’) was released in 2016.
Description
Mark Murphy was born in 1932 in upstate New York. The Murphys were a middle-class family of English and Northern-Irish Protestant stock. His father was a singer and his mother a jazz fan. Painfully shy as a child, Murphy discovered his own love for jazz at the age of 14, particularly the singing of Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. After studying at Syracuse University, he was spotted singing in a local club by Sammy Davis Jr., who encouraged him.