Curtis back for Dirty Martini

Published on 29/11/2012 13:41

WHEN Curtis Stigers headlined a series of intimate gigs during the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival earlier this year, you couldn’t buy tickets for love nor money.

So successful was the residency, and so impressed was Billy Lowe, owner of The Dirty Martini Cocktail Bar in Le Monde, that he determined there and then to bring the singer back to the Capital.

Consequently, Stigers returns on Monday for the first of three concerts and the singer can’t wait.

“I love Edinburgh. It’s one of the most breathtakingly beautiful cities in the world, and the audiences are full of enthusiasm, intelligence, and good humour,” he says.

“I can’t wait to be back at The Dirty Martini for another residency. I love that place.”

The 47-year-old American jazz vocalist, saxophonist, guitarist, and songwriter, is best known for his early 1990s hits, most notably I Wonder Why, which reached No. 5 in the UK charts.

Billed as Up Close and Personal evenings, his new residency at the Dirty Martini, is the first of what Lowe hopes will become a regular series of events featuring some of the top jazz musicians in the world. With a 9pm start, doors open at 7.30pm for those who fancy making a night of it by treating themselves to dinner first.

So what can audiences expect when the entertainment starts? Well in keeping with the festive theme Stigers teases, “They might hear some rare old material and even a holiday song or three.”

Curtis Stigers Up Close and Personal, Dirty Martini/Le Monde, George Street, Monday-Wednesday, 9pm, £30, 0131-270 3900