I grew up in Orkney which is a very musical place.

I have a very musical family, and I've always been a singer. I can't remember a time when I wasn't a singer. My brother would teach me jazz songs when I was little. I was into Billie Holiday when I was seven. I was always learning jazz tunes as a kid.

I moved away from Orkney to come to Glasgow to study music when I was 18. I studied a popular music course at the Academy of Music and Sound. That wasn’t entirely a jazz course, but I focused my course around jazz. My brother playing songs by the jazz greats showed me that was the kind of music that I loved. It was the same with my mum as well, my family really encouraged me in the right direction because they knew how much I love jazz.

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I did the popular music course for three years then I was toying with the idea of getting a sensible job, but I decided not to bother and to just jump in and try to be a jazz singer, and it paid off.

I came out of the Academy when I was 21 and started up teaching music and also performing as much as I could, trying to get gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh and trying to get mostly jazz gigs, but sometimes just taking whatever gigs came along. Over the years I've been pushing myself to continually take a step up by entering competitions and writing lots of music. Every year I've been more ambitious, worked a little bit harder, and it's been really good.

Last week I won the Rising Star award at the Scottish Jazz Awards.  Two years ago I won the Danny Kyle Award at Celtic Connections, and that was another kind of prestigious thing that pushed my career along. Last year I was a semi-finalist in Young Jazz Musician of the Year, and that was amazing too.

When I'm singing it just feels like fun. It's like a party, a night out, and it's what I love to do, and it's something that I can do no matter what mood I'm in. I just always want to sing.

I perform live usually two or three times a week. My main residency is at Swing, which is an underground jazz club that I love and where I sing there regularly. I make a living from music - I do a couple of days teaching music too, which is really good fun. Singing is good for your soul.

I sang at a jazz club in Amsterdam last year and I've been gigging in Edinburgh. I played at the Blue Lamp in Aberdeen, and I sometimes go back to Orkney to perform as well.

At this year's Glasgow Jazz Festival, I'm performing with a full band playing mostly original songs that I've started recording as an album and I'm going to be doing a single release at The Blue Arrow next month. I've just finished recording that single and it's the first song of what will be my complete album which is very jazz influenced - it's poppy, it's jazzy, it's lots of things really, so that night I'll get to perform some of that music but I'll also do some of my favourite jazz songs with a really good band.

I hope I'm always doing this. When people ask me, 'Are you trying to get famous?' I reply, 'No, I just want to do what I love, and I want singing to be my career'.

I want to continue earning enough of a living by doing what I love doing, and if it takes off, or if it doesn't take off, I've tried, and I'll be content. I'm not really looking for fame. I just love what I do.

Marianne McGregor Quartet play at Swing, June 22.


For more information:  JazzFest