Ocelot Deputy Editor Ben Fitzgerald spoke to power ballard sensation turned jazz crooner Curtis Stigers ahead of his big band performance at the Henley Festival in July.
“Are you actually calling me from Swindon?” he says… I must confess I was a little taken aback. I’m calling Curtis Stigers on a remarkably clear phone line from his home in Boise, Idaho. And the first thing he asks me about is Swindon - in almost reverential tones. Turns out that the town has stuck in his mind after he paid a brief visit a few years ago - playing at the Swindon Arts Centre in Old Town. “Is there still a Mexican restaurant next door to the Art Centre?” he presses. (There isn’t - it’s since become a rather good Nepalese restaurant) “I was sitting there having some food on my own after the show; I was the only one in there until another couple came in. I couldn’t believe my eyes… ‘you’re fucking Andy Partridge from XTC!’ I said. I’m a huge fan. How crazy is that. We keep in touch on Twitter now.” I put a little tick in my notepad next to the question ‘have you ever been to Swindon?’. 
Curtis Stigers is one grounded cat - far removed from the unapproachable floppy haired mega star pouting on the cover of his 1991 eponymous multi-platinum album. Nowadays he answers his own phone - I know it’s a small thing but normally with these high profile interviews you would expect a PR intermediary to be there to take the call and say something useful like ‘Curtis is ready to speak to you now’. Does he miss that level of mega stardom? “It was wonderful at the time - but you can’t spend your life like that. It’s very easy to lose track of reality. They were great times and I got to perform in front of huge numbers of people and meet a lot of my heroes like Eric Clapton, Elton John and Prince. But I wouldn’t want to be stuck in the back of a tour bus now - these days I like to keep it low key, it’s better to connect to people in each of the place I travel to.” 
As a youngster, Curtis was exposed to a wide range of music: “I was listening to everything from Led Zeppelin to Sinatra but I did go to college to study Jazz - so I do have some form of academic training.” And while Curtis has explored many different musical avenues in his career, it’s to jazz that he habitually returns. In 2001 Curtis threw his lot in with the Concord Jazz label, effectively reinventing himself as a jazz crooner and embarking on a series of tours with a tight quartet and playing in intimate venues and a string of albums. However when he tours in England later this month he will be teaming up with a big band to perform a programme of Sinatra standards. “This all came out of a show that I did in Denmark where I was singing songs from the classic Sinatra at the Sands album - I’d had a few Danish beers and I got up on stage and did my thing, thinking nothing about it afterwards. But then a recording emerged and when I listened back to it, I thought it sounded really good and we turned it into an album. So now we’ve been touring the album. When I play in Henley I will be working with the Ronnie Scott’s Big Band - they’re amazing, I’m really looking forward to it.” When not out touring, Curtis is keeping it real, having moved back to his hometown of Boise Idaho when his daughter was three - she’s now 18 and getting ready to fly the nest. “Different things are important to me now I guess. I’ve seen plenty of people in my industry lose sight of what’s real and what’s not. I’d like to think that I have never been like that, I’ve always tried to keep a grip on what’s important.” Catch Curtis on his tour which runs from July 12 - Wigan International Jazz Festival, July 12 Birmingham Town Hall, July 14 Henley Festival, July 15 London Palladium. For further dates and tickets see: www.curtisstigers.com/tour
