When and how did you start singing? When I was a little girl I loved singing, and got into various youth choirs like the Cantate Youth Choir, which taught me all about harmony and strict choral discipline. I studied music at Cambridge (I'm a Catz girl) and sang in the college choir and chamber choir. Choral singing is such good training for the ear and for learning how to work in an ensemble. Solo singing developed from this. How would you describe your voice? | "Sometimes I overhear a song coming from a room or out in the street, and I just have to find out what it is, knocking on windows to ask what it is!" | | Sara Mitra |
Clean, but getting dirtier! I'm classically trained, so to sing in my own voice is still a relative novelty. Where did your passion for jazz come from? I started listening to old blues recordings by Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Julia Lee, and loved them! That led me to early jazz group recordings by Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, the beginnings of jazz, or what gets called trad jazz now. I'm no traddy singer, but I'm definitely more into the roots of jazz than the more modern side of things – I'm a young fogey! Which singers do you most admire? As well as the old-time blues singers and the greats like Ella Fitzgerald, I adore Anita O'Day and Sheila Jordan. They've both really influenced my jazz singing. Timing and inflection are key, as is a great stage presence. Jordan's in her seventies and she's still performing. I hope I'm still going when I'm that age! What would be on your jukebox from hell? Really cheesy boy bands. The over-production sets my teeth on edge, and the clunky key changes are so, so wrong! I do love a good wedding disco though! How do you choose the songs you perform?
 | | Catch Sara at the Elm Tree in Cambridge |
Sometimes a friend or another musician will recommend a song. I listen to as many different versions as I can, and think about my own response to the lyric, what the feel should be, and how I can make the words personal. Sometimes I overhear a song coming from a room or out in the street, and I just have to find out what it is, knocking on windows to ask (very politely!) what people are listening to. I discovered Eartha Kitt's version of Lilac Wine that way. Do you have particular favourites? Why Do I Love You is an amazingly happy tune to romp through. It's all about the circular nature of love: you love someone because they love you back, isn't the world great, lalala! I first heard it as a ballad in the musical Showboat, but it wasn't until I heard the Miles Davis version that I realised it was such a fun little number. Now I sing it at most jazz gigs and it always goes down well. You also write and perform your own material. What's that like? The performing is scary and amazing at the same time. I've started doing full originals gigs with my band. It's such a risk, but the results are pretty cool; audiences have been very supportive. As for the style of the songs, there's a swing vibe with some bluesy numbers but also some more modern influences – odd time signatures and Latin dance grooves. Stylistically it's early days, but I'm writing as much as I can, and trialling all this new material to see what fits the ensemble best. You also work as a vocal coach. Tell me about that. Often people are told as a child they can't sing, and this stays with them for life, even if it's not true! It's important to understand everyone has their own sound, and as a vocal coach you're there to help them explore and feel comfortable with that, not to tell them what they "should" sound like. I focus on breathing work and tone control, giving students their own way of experimenting with sound in a vocally healthy way. It's so rewarding when a student has a breakthrough, and learns to love their voice – I'm always glad to be part of that. So what's next for you? Recording my own songs in December, the release of my jazz standards album with the Paul Kirby trio, and some dates in Europe in spring, which will be lovely! [Keep an eye on Sara's website for details.] And finally, if you could go backwards or forwards in time, where would you go? Backwards: 20s Chicago sounds like it was a pretty cool time, if you didn't get mown down by gangsters! | 
