Bryan Ferry is NOT mentioned in this article which I found a bit strange after all the success of The Jazz Age/Great Gatsby. Some forum members might find it an interesting read.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicb ... nie-lennox

Cher Roxy,
A very interesting and in many ways very accurate article.
Jazz is, without doubt, an art form with its own rules and the artist certainly has to have a solid knowledge of the genre to play in that idiom and many named in that article did fail miserably.
IWNSHO, of the few 'iconic' contemporary singers who have successfully straddled that divide, only Ferry, Palmer, Boz Scaggs and George Michael immediately come to mind as having done it with great success. In all instances, they had a real feel for it and Windswept would opine that their own music was informed and influenced by Jazz from the get go. Consequently, slipping into that genre was doubtless a labour of love for them and was never a stretch.
Our own hero's efforts in that domain were helped enormously by the fabulous Colin Good who is a real expert in that music.
Of course, we have great contemporary Jazz singers today.
Windswept saw Gregory Porter last Monday at the RAH and he was terrific. A Jazz head through and through and already up there with the greats. Madeleine Peyreux and the late, great Amy Winehouse are also two other shining examples and strangely enough, Windswept also thinks Paloma Faith certainly has the swagger and pipes for it. He saw her do a Jazz set with Guy Barker Orchestra at The Savoy a couple of years ago and she really was something else.
Perhaps when she get's fed up of being a pop princess, she'll give it a go?
I certainly hope that our hero will reassemble TBFO in the not too distant future. 'The Jazz Age' was sublime!
a bien tôt,
Windswept

I fully second this, cher Monsieur Windswept. In PMNSHO the first swing album of Robbie Williams was one of the better attempts of pop musicians to come to terms with the jazz world. The albums of Paul Mc Cartney and Eric Clapton didn't really convince me and Rod Stewart's voice wasn't what the Great American Songbook had waited for . BTW: I can recommend Paul Young's 'Rock Swings' album from 2006.