Pete Churchill

Dave Holland / Norma Winstone / London Vocal Project directed by Pete Churchill: Vital Spark

by Neil Duggan
February 13, 2026

Dave Holland, Norma Winstone and the London Vocal Project, directed by Pete Churchill, combine to present Vital Spark, an album featuring a collection of Kenny Wheeler compositions for choir and jazz ensemble, written in the last period of his life.Seven of the nine pieces on the album were mailed to Churchill over the course of a few years. He managed to resolve and arrange these part-formed fragments. Winstone added her lyrics, alongside Wheeler's settings of poems by Stevie Smith, Lewis ...

Pete Churchill Trio featuring Bobby Wellins: The Bad And The Beautiful

by Chris May
December 16, 2004

Vocalists get a mixed press reaction in the jazz world. Most of us probably enjoy Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway's well-charged, hipster encoded genius, and Billie Holiday's survivor vibe pulls in almost as big a crowd. But from there on in there are two, seemingly irreconcilable tribes: one which loves vocalists, another which loathes and despises them.

The divide has probably been made wider by the current crop of over-produced jazz-lite twenty-somethings, marketed by the majors as saviours of the ...