see the youtube video here

see the youtube video here

Victoria and Her Majesty's Guards Big Band live appearance on the Alan
Titchmarsh show - sang 'Almost Like Being In Love'.
See the video on youtube here

The 19-year-old positively purrs her way through this saucy Crimbo classic and is backed up in style by the Household Guards’ brass band. This should march to victory with all sales going to the Army Benevolent Fund

The Sun 18.12.08

 The 19 year old cocktail waitress come jazz singer is set to make some seasonal mileage out of the fame that came her way when she wooed George Clooney with her sassy style.  Her saucy take on this purrfect Yuletide treat - previously given the treatment by Eartha Kitt and Madonna - will have the nation getting hot under the Christmas collar.  The Guards Big Band accompany her and all proceeds go to the Army Benevolent Fund.

review in The Daily Mirror

 When 19 year old Victoria Hart, toast of the tabloids, added some undiscovered gems from the Gershwin brothers to her musical menu, the result was this fascinating release.

But there's another twist.  The search for The Lost Gershwin began when Kerenza Peacock inherited a suitcase full of 60 year old sheet music imported into Britain by American servicemen during World War II.  Much of it was by George and Ira Gershwin, a major songwriting force in musical theatre between the wars, with two dozen Broadway and Hollywood scores to their credit.  Kerenza, leader of all-female string quartet Pavao, met singer Victoria thanks to the wonders of myspace and they travelled to the US Library of Congress to make further finds.

Russell Watson bestows his seal of approval by duetting with Victoria on Isn't It A Pity from 1933's Pardon My English - but choices like Ask Me Again and Tonight's The Night have remained unheard by all but scholars of the Great American Songbook.  The performances and arrangements are very much true to the era; only the recording fidelity is 21st century.

Kerenza's Pavao quartet add the strings with aplomb, the gypsy stylings of Little Jazz Bird being particularly impressive. And if you aren't impressed by the rhyme for Vodka in the song of that name - "Vodka makes me feel oddka" - then blame Oscar Hammerstein and Otto Harbach.  It must have been lyricist Ira's day off!

review by Michael D Heatley, HMV Choice Magazine

review by Howard Loxton, The British Theatre Guide

"National pride is at an all time high and we feel that this could be the surprise contender of 2008 - after all what is good enough for Clooney & Co must be good enough for us."

William Hill's spokesman Rupert Adams: the odds of Victoria's single being no 1 at Christmas are 6-1

HART AIMS FOR CHRISTMAS NO 1

The Sunday Mail - TV & Showbiz - Cocktail waitress has eyes on Christmas No.1
VICTORIA HART, the British cocktail waitress who sang for George Clooney, is making a bid for Christmas Number One.

Hart joins Christmas song battle
BBC News - UK
Former waitress Victoria Hart, who sang for the stars at a Cannes party hosted by George Clooney, is joining the battle for Christmas Number One. ...

buy 'Santa Baby' on Amazon

buy 'Santa baby' on iTunes

Paul Richards, WHLI Radio, Long Island

(reviewed 26.03.2008) *** out of *****

This album of lesser known Gershwin songs is beguiling enough and handled with a sassy stylishness by Hart, (forever to be known as “The Singing Waitress” ever since she performed for George Clooney at a Cannes Film Festival party). The string quartet Pavao brings a Broadway polish to such numbers as the perky Tonight's the Night and the Lady Be Good-like Little Jazz Bird, while Russell Watson gets all crooner-ish on the attractive duet Isn't it a Pity.

review by John Clarke, The Times

Available online here:

Amazon.co.uk:
buy The Lost Gershwin on Amazon.co.uk

HMV.com:
http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx
=-1;1;5;-1&sku=790392&WT

The American Air Force personnel are restless and miss their homes and their music. At one such air base at Mildenhall in Suffolk, a young British female pianist called Eve Stannard entertains the troops with her piano renditions of famous standards.

Eve has a problem – the British have stopped printing sheet music because of the war effort so she has no music to enable her to play the latest standards. So Eve asks the young airmen returning to the States to ask their buddies to bring back as much sheet music as they can find from America. Over the months she builds up a huge collection of music.

The war is won, the piano lid is shut, the music is put away into a very large suitcases…..

Fast forward 53 years. It’s 1997 and Fay Peacock, whose daughter Kerenza is studying violin at the Royal Academy, is in a hospital bed waiting for an operation. In the bed next to her is…. Eve Stannard. The two get talking, realise their mutual interest in music and discuss Kerenza’s love of show tunes. However when Fay returns from her operation Eve is no longer there.

Some weeks later, a knock on the door at the Peacock home and standing outside are the suitcases full of musical treasures that Eve Stannard amassed during the war. She has gifted it to Kerenza who, busy with her studies, puts it away in an attic for several more years.

Fast forward again to 2007, when Kerenza, whose string quartet Pavao has now gained international recognition, is having a conversation with Victoria Hart and her record producer Geoff Gurd about standard catalogue and the Great American songbook. Victoria and Pavao have met through myspace, have done some concerts together and are now thinking of recording together.

On recounting the tale of Eve Stannard, Victoria and Geoff ask to take a look inside the suitcase and to their astonishment they discover several thousand pieces of sheet music. Among the collection is hundreds of unknown/little known songs by famous American composers like George Gershwin.

The team contacts Leopold Godowsky III, one of the sole surviving relatives of the Gershwin family, and are invited to visit the American Library of Congress in Washington DC to unearth some more original Gershwin manuscripts. Proper Records become interested in the story and the decision is made to record “The Lost Gershwin”.

The result is a unique take on songs from one of the 20th century’s greatest composers. Instead of opting for the usual big band style, the producers have gone for a more subtle and varied approach, relying on intricate arrangements and skilful playing by the quartet and their fellow musicians.

Some of the arrangements echo the jazz tinged melodic style of the composer, whilst others see Victoria Hart stray into hitherto unfamiliar territory – musicals, country music, even Vaudeville.

Gershwin lovers may well enjoy listening to the rarities on this album, most of which haven’t been recorded for a long time, if ever. At the same time Victoria and Pavao hopie to reach a whole new band of admirers who, like them, will come to appreciate the beauty and sophistication of George’s melodies.

The Lost Gershwin is available on 27th October in shops
throughout the UK (HMV, WH Smith, etc) and on-line
(www.amazon.co.uk, etc) and worldwide on iTunes....

Cal Weth 

John Gambrill, Peterborough

Hart’s musical heroines include such luminaries as Ella Fitzgerald and Eva Cassidy, and her love of old-fashioned big band music shines through in some of the album’s best tracks. ‘Two Time Blues’ would suit Fitzgerald perfectly with its classy and deeply sensual style, Hart’s youthful voice perfectly capturing the naiveté of the song’s heroine. The more glamorous ‘Chocolates & Strawberries’ shows off a highly developed sense of fun and wickedness, with some plainly suggestive lyrics set against a snazzy ‘70s-style backing rich with wah-wah trumpets and a thumping bass line. Hart’s ability to draw a picture with her voice is quite remarkable, and is suitably demonstrated by perhaps the best song on the album - also its only cover - ‘Sunny Afternoon’. Toe tapping and deeply sultry, Hart’s interpretation of the classic Kinks song evokes all the attendant vivid images of a languid, sun-drenched summer, managing to ensure that the song remains familiar while throwing in some throaty sax riffs to suit her jazz credentials. Other impressive tracks include the 1950s-style two-step jazz of ‘Wonderful’ and the deliciously sexy ‘Je M’Oublie’, which oozes French sophistication with its atmospheric accordion backing and Hart’s voluptuous vocals.

Where the album falls flat is in trying to demonstrate the breadth of Hart’s skills; this leads to the inclusion of some forgettable guitar-pop tracks such as ‘Some Day’, a bland ballad that simply does not do Hart’s unique voice justice. Fortunately, Hart is an accomplished jazz singer, and her wit, flair and talent pull her through the dross. Sassy, classy and unashamedly mushy, Whatever Happened To Love? marks the debut of a new and formidable force in modern jazz. Let’s hope that Hart doesn’t lose sight of what she’s best at.

Andy Wasley

http://wearsthetrousers.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/2007-reviews-dump-h/

George Hammond, Lincoln

click here to see Victoria's news on the ITV web site 

click here for an article about the tour on female first

Thanks ever so much for the most incredible evening of Jazz.
Victoria Hart is the best live musician I have ever enjoyed, she swings, she sings, she stole my musical soul.

Newark Advertiser May 23rd 2008