Page 233 - FINAL_Guildhall Media Highlights 2019-2020 Coverage Book

The summer school run by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland proved
another invaluable experience for Manning. “I just loved learning. Jazz was like a new
musical language, and I remember that it was after that summer school that I came

back and told my mum I wanted to be a jazz musician.” Manning returned to the
summer school two more times, and one of those occasions led to him appearing at the
Proms as part of a choir of students from the course.

Along with Alan Benzie, the much-loved English singer Liane Carroll played a huge

part in Manning’s development. Not only did she point him in the direction of the
vocal jazz workshops run in Scotland by fellow singer Sophie Bancroft – with tutors
including herself, Sara Colman and Fionna Duncan – but she also invited him to sing

with her at her Christmas show at Ronnie Scott’s in 2017. She is, as Manning says, “a
very generous person and musician”.

Carroll has also been a significant influence on the young vocalist. “Her singing is so

honest; every word is so true and she just makes you feel something. No matter which
genre she’s singing in, you are guaranteed to be told a story and she has so much fun
onstage doing it. It’s infectious. She’s a very natural improviser which I love as well.”

It was during a particular listening phase around 18 months ago, that Manning – who

is currently midway through the four-year jazz course at Guildhall School of Music
and Drama in London – had the surreal experience of being invited to support the
singer in question at a jazz festival gig.

He explains: “I was really getting into Georgie Fame – I love his Portrait of Chet

album; he’s an amazing singer – and was listening to him a lot early in 2018. I sang
one of his vocalese numbers at the launch of The Blue Arrow club and Jill Rodger, the
director of the Glasgow Jazz Festival, heard me and said: ‘Georgie Fame is playing at

the jazz festival this year. How would you like to open for him?’”

And so it was that Manning and the similarly youthful pianist Fergus McCreadie came
to be the support act for Fame last year, and then Ruby Turner this summer. (The pair

have now, separately, been nominated in the Newcomer category of the prestigious
Parliamentary Awards, taking place in London in December.) Understandably, this
was a pretty daunting experience, but Manning took his cue from his more

experienced, then 20-year-old, musical partner. “We decided not to tailor the music to
the person we were supporting. Fergus reminded me never to compromise as a
musician. He said: ‘Let’s just do our thing unapologetically’.”