''Nicki is one of that rare breed of artist, who though fully respectful of song lyrics, has the control and confidence to take daring unexpected liberties with the melody, without marring, and in most cases, actually enhancing the results!!'' – Doncaster Jazz

'Immaculately fresh arrangements and flawless musicianship" – YEP

"A well deserved award Jazz Yorkshire vocalist of the year to a talented and vivacious singer "– Jazzyorkshire

Happy Spring Everyone!

The weather is changing into Spring/Summer and the mood is lighter for everyone. Days seem longer with more daylight hours and there seems more time to do everything. Some new gigs coming along and this friday Nicki will be working along side esteemed musician/pianist/arranger Jami Sharif. They'll be doing a gig together with some other musicians on a new project to launch Jazz in North Yorkshire. Starting off at the Harewood Village Hall, Leeds, for a Jazz picnic, where you bring your own food and drink and enjoy the music for just a £10 admission charge.  The Allan/Sharif collaborations give a refreshingly different edge to the songs so do try and come see for yourself. 

The Wakefield Jazz Festival on saturday 1st June at Heath Hall, Wakefield is going to be a great gig with The Ronnie Bottomley Sextet featuring Nicki Allan (Basically the nicki Allan Sextet) and Dave Linane on Bass, The Snake Davis Band, and Chameleon. This promises to be a fantastic gig to get to with 3 superb bands on. Tickets are selling well at £20 each and can be purchased from the festival webiste on the gigs page. 

5th April at JATP at Bradford Irish club, Was the full team and our first gig with Jim Corry on Soprano Saxophone. The gig was a stormer! The guys played amazing and the arrangements were superb. It was a real high energy gig and club organiser, Martin Powell named it the 'gig of the season by far' So looking forward to coming back again next year to that terrific club that promotes all kinds of Jazz and supports local Jazz musicians!

My new solo piano vocal album is almost done and should be finished in a couple of weeks. Its an eclectic collection of beautiful songs and piano pieces and i'm very happy with it. I'll have copies with me at my gigs very soon. In fact, we're onto designing the cover now so it REALLY will be available at gigs from May 22nd. 

The Seven Jazz voices choir is going great! We're on our second season and rehearsals are going really well. They are not only fun but we get some great harmonies going. Last sunday 5th May we did a small concert at the festival for 'Mind', the organisation that lends us its premises to rehearse. It was nothing short of a mini Glastonbury! About 300 people milling around the stalls and listening to the bands, a terrific afternoon helped of course by the weather being so glorious.

Our choir is a wonderful community project that you can get involved with if you feel you have a bit of a voice. You meet great people and sing great songs. Our next rehearsal is on Monday 20th May and we'll be starting some new Jazz arrangements after doing quite a few gospel ones recently. New members are always welcome so please come along. 

Dont forget to follow me on twitter and 'like' my facebook page 'Nicki Allan' and to sign up for the newsletter for monthly news.

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Thus 14th March  is the fantastic fundraising event One voice held at the Royal Armouries in leeds which will be like the BBC One Voice series to raise money for Children's Charities. Joining me on the judging panel is Leeds based composer/producer Mark Walker who is also Westlife's keyboard player. Mark will be producing the charity single, Lyrics written by CBB's songwriter Lucy Le Claire and sung by myself,  which will be performed live at the event by the contestants and available to buy the following week to support the children's charities also. Tickets to this fabulous dinner dance bash can be purchased from the event organiser, Lisa Revolta, from Eventium events on 07889 016280. .........The charity single has been done and will be available to buy shortly. All proceeds go to children's charities. 

Fat FunkNicki has teamed up with York singer/Sax/Guitarist Jason Halliwell to form half of pop duo, Full Fat Funk. The duo has been going for a couple of years and is already very successful, mainly due to the excellent vocal and instrumental skills of lead singer Jason. Since starting gigs in September, both Nicki and jason have been receiving rave reviews from agents. This is very different from Nicki's usual jazz performances, but is a great chance to hear her at full voice belting out well known pop songs from artists such as leona lewis, Eva Cassidy, Adele and many more, along with Queen, Take That and John Miles. Keep an eye on the gigs page for local gigs in your area and jason has a full fat funk page on facebook that you can join to keep up to date with all the gigs. 

2 new CD's are on the horizon this spring. Rehearsals are underway with Graham for the long awaited piano vocal album plus a new cruise CD of me playing and singing will be underway from April. Busy times! But you can still purchase the other CD;s on iTunes, spottily, amazon with ease. 

Read the new CD review of 'You're Gonna Hear From Me' by Ron Burnett published on Friday 20th April in The York Press and now on the reviews page. Alternatively read online by following the link. CD's have been sent to Japon and Montreux by request also. 

click here to view

A big thanks to Jazz FM, who have played a number of tracks from Nicki's sextet album on the radio in the last couple of weeks. A special thanks go to Bob Sinclair who has featured some of the tracks on his Dinner Jazz show Sunday 7 till 10pm. Bob recently tweeted to Nicki....

 Bob Sinfield (@BobSinfield)

@NickiAllan Love your new CD! Played a track on Jazz FM today and will put another into Dinner Jazz tomorrow eve. Well done!

Wed 1st May - Cullingworth Conservative Club, Haworth, Bradford, BD13 5HN Yorkshire with the Stan Roylance Trio, Brendan Duffy & Nicki Allan