Biography
21 October 1959, London, England. Jazz vocalist Watkiss’ family arrived in England from Jamaica in 1955. He grew up with the sounds of blue beat, ska and reggae at home and sang pop and soul at school talent competitions where he started to play guitar and take classical piano lessons. In his early twenties he was affected by the Bob Marley explosion of Rastafarian reggae, and followed the Fatman Hi-Fi Sound System. A chance encounter with a tape of Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker playing ‘A Night In Tunisia’ in 1980 led to a conversion to jazz, confirmed by witnessing Charlie Rouse at Ronnie Scott’s club in 1982. His group, Alumni, featuring brother Trevor Watkis (piano) and Alan Weekes (guitar), played in London’s Covent Garden wine bars and Watkiss also sang with Simon Purcell’s Jazz Train, but it was the formation of the Jazz Warriors by Courtney Pine that made his name. Watkiss is an excellent frontman and his skilled, imaginative...
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