Nicola Milan's High Five

Historical article recovered from a Wayback capture dated 2018-02-24.

Sophisticated, romantic and alluring, Nicola Milan captivates with her unique, silky vocals and relaxing, emotive compositions. Likened vocally to Julie London, this Australian singer/songwriter performs her own mix of easy listening originals with the versatility of Eva Cassidy and Melody Gardot.

With songs about love, romance and heartache Nicola’s music is as exotic as her Welsh/ Anglo-Indian heritage as she effortlessly blends jazz, blues, Latin and Celtic tinged folk. It has been noticed how well crafted her work is with her bossa nova ‘Love Me More’ being chosen over thousands of entries to become a finalist in the coveted John Lennon International Songwriting Contest in 2013.

Nicola’s cheeky swing number ‘No Room For Promises’ also won a finalist spot in the UK International Songwriting Contest and also in the Australian Songwriting Contest; both of which also receive thousands of entries each year and are judged by industry heavy weights such as Sting’s producer Kipper Eldridge, legendary producer Stuart Epps (Elton John, Robbie Williams, Oasis) and top producer and arranger Richard Niles (Paul McCartney, Kylie Minogue, Take That, Mariah Carey) to name a few.

“Witty, sophisticated and original, it is exciting to see such an intelligent and honest artist and songwriter surface in Australia.”

– Limelight Magazine (Australia’s premier Arts and Classical and Jazz Music Publication)

Nicola has her songs placed in feature length films, written music for a popular web series, released a debut EP ‘Little Rendezvous’ in November 2011 which went straight to #1 on the jazz charts in Honolulu and Wisconsin in the USA.

This year Nicola recorded her debut full length album “Forbidden Moments” which was released on 10 May 2013 to a sellout crowd. The result of two years of Nicola’s songwriting work, the album boasts an incredible line up of musicians and has received rave reviews from the music industry, media and fans. Nicola is touring Australia nationally in January 2014 to promote her new album with shows scheduled for Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

“Milan sings through the rest of the world with her confident alto voice, well-balanced, inside and out. She shows that she can readily compose and sing in any genre or subgenre she chooses whether the gypsy-tinged tango of “The Scent of Her Perfume” or the American stage ballad “I Begin To Understand.”

-allaboutjazz.com (USA)

Nicola is also an award winning cartoonist, published author and poet. In the 2011 Rotary Cartoon Awards “Women on the World” competition Nicola took out an award for her cartoon about women and the glass ceiling. Nicola’s new fully illustrated book “Monster-in-Law and the rest of her rotten family” co-authored with Judy Davies and published by Junic Productions is available on her cartooning blog milansmischief.com. Nicola also writes funny poetry and has competed in the Australian Poetry Slam Competition for poets and writers that perform their work.

1. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA – London 1995

I was fifteen years old when I went to this Andrew Lloyd Webber classic and it really set the bar for me musically up until this day. It was one of the first live shows I had even seen and the not only was the cast superb but the staging effects, props, lighting were all spectacular. I know this is not jazz but the clarity of the vocals has always stayed with me as well as the concept of creating a visual feast onstage along with great music. The highlight of the performance was firstly when The Phantom lured Christine down to his lair and the ‘boat’ on stage was shrouded in soft billowing smoke and I remember wondering how they managed to make it look like the boat was literally on water, floating across the stage. The second highlight was when the Phantom (you know, I can’t for the life of me remember who the cast member was - but I was 15 so you’ll have to forgive me) hit that magical pianissimo top note in ‘Music of the Night’. Such amazing vocal control.

2. JOSE LUIS GUTIERREZ QUARTET (Spain) – Bremen 2012

I really enjoyed the performance from Jose and his band during the Jazzahead Showcase evening in Bremen 2012. There is such passion in the way the musicians from Spain played. It really fed across all the bands that performed that evening (It was a Spanish showcase that year) and the other common theme was how simple the chord progressions were and how much emphasis was on vamping but whenever they lacked in musical complexity they made up for it in emotion. From my experience at WAAPA, I personally feel that in WA at least, we sometimes get caught up in playing the most challenging music we can but to the absolute detriment of emotion so this performance was a good kick in the pants to remind me that music is about emotion first and foremost. The other thing I enjoyed about Jose and his band were their onstage antics. They were highly entertaining and the drummer Tommy Cagiani had the audience in stitches with his soft toy throwing and use of non traditional performance apparatus (to say the least)!

3. NORAH JONES - Perth Convention Centre - 2013

This was not a performance I enjoyed at all in fact, I’m including it in my list because having enjoyed Norah’s music for years, I was utterly disappointed at her unenthusiastic, run of the mill performance and it has stood out as as an example of how to loose a fan for life, so I thought it was worth mentioning. Norah looked like she really didn’t want to be in Perth performing at all and it definitely showed. She barely acknowledged the audience and her band just stood there bored. The set list was badly thought out and her new material was crud. It was pretty obvious which songs she had written herself and those that were written for her. Harsh, yes, but I’m just giving my opinion here so feel free to disagree with me.

4. INFORMAL JAM SESSION - New Orleans

Again, I’m breaking the rules but my time in New Orleans has had a profound effect on my sense of community in music. There I was, little ol’ me taking a pony ride around the Latin Quarter when I started happily chatting to the driver about music. He just happened to be one of the dancers cast in the new HBO series ‘The Treme’ and he invited me to hang out with him and some muso friends that evening (I won’t go into names). His friends were unbelievably amazing players and music seemed to come as naturally to them as breathing plus they were so welcoming and friendly. I felt completely at ease and had such a good time jamming with these insanely skilful musos and the focus was just on having fun and inclusion. No egos, no elitism just music, fun and friends.

5. SIMIN TANDER QUARTET - Jazzahead Showcase Night, 2013

Again part of the Jazzahead showcase for 2012 (I really need to go back!) I had the chance to discover an amazing Afghani/German vocalist called Simin Tander. I didn’t think much of her compositions but her voice really spoke to me and on stage she was mesmerising. Very seductive and alluring but done in an effortless and sophisticated way.