Best Vocalist nominee at the Scottish Jazz Awards 2022 and 2023, Scottish jazz vocalist Louise Dodds is set to release her 4th studio album on contemporary jazz label AMP Records. The album is written by Louise, based on her own experiences and the experiences of those closest to her. The release date is set for 14th March 2025, and also features Elchin Shirinov (arrangements and piano), Max Luthert (double bass) and Dave Hamblett (drums) and was mixed and mastered by Grammy winning engineer Chris Allen (Samara Joy, Gretchen Parlato)

In May 2023, Louise released her third studio album, a duo project with renowned Azerbaijani pianist, arranger and composer Elchin Shirinov titled Two Hours After Midnight. The album brought together their love of folk, classical and jazz and was supported by Creative Scotland. The album received 4 star reviews from Jazzwise, All About Jazz and MOJO Magazine, as well as critical acclaim from press in Europe, America and Japan, and was selected by All About Jazz as one of their top jazz albums of 2023. It also resulted in Louise being the focus of a podcast on Switzerland’s national station RTS (listen here).

The duo then worked on a writing commission through PRS Foundation for Music on the theme of Belonging, with lyrics by Louise and music by Elchin. The subsequent compositions were performed as part of their summer 2024 tour.

Prior to this release, Louise released her first album in 9 years in March 2022. The album, ‘The Story Needs an Ending’, was also Louise’s first fully original album. She took the album on the road, performing 12 dates across Scotland, Northern Ireland and England. The album was selected by Jim Gilchrist in his Arts Review of 2022 in The Scotsman.

It was also selected as Album of the Week in the UK, Central America and Asia.

Recorded in Glasgow in June 2021 with fellow Scots Tom Gibbs, Andrew Robb and Alyn Cosker, the album contains 10 tracks which Louise wrote by delving deep into her own life experiences, touching on subjects like grief, relationships, learning to trust life again, and emancipation. Many of the tracks were written during lockdown, with some being showcased as part of Louise’s lockdown collaboration project, ‘Songs From The Blue Room’. 

During lockdown, Louise also collaborated with London jazz guitarist Ant Law, resulting in the single Whispers (Credits) being released (as well as this rendition of Coltrane’s 26-2!)

Prior to lockdown though, 2020 saw Louise having the incredible honour of opening for Norma Winstone MBE as part of the Scottish Jazz Weekend in Edinburgh, Her career has also seen her performing at London Jazz Festival, Pizza Express, Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, Glasgow Jazz Festival as well as in Europe and the Middle East.

Her previous album, ‘Fly’, released in 2013, featured UK jazz heavyweights John Pearce, Dave Green, Steve Brown and Martin Shaw, and that year she was also awarded funding by Jazz Services UK and Arts Council England for her upcoming UK tour. In 2012 Louise was semi finalist at the International Jazz Vocalist Competition in Lithuania.

Louise also performed the Title Theme and Credits Theme for the PS4 game Mutazione in 2019. She is also an accomplished writer in many genres and has songs published by Universal and BMG.

In addition to her performing, recording and writing work, Louise is also Deputy Chair of the Scotland Council for The Ivors Academy and an elected member of the Senate for the whole of the UK for The Ivors Academy.

Louise is supported by Creative Scotland, PRS Foundation for Music and Help Musicians and is a Senate member of The Ivors Academy