JAZZ vocalist Tina May will be steering audiences through an evening of musical tales filled with woe, warmth and wit when she comes to Worcester's Huntingdon Hall.

If you don't know who Tina is, you may have heard her performing the theme tunes to two ITV series, Infidelity and Airline.

Tina, who will be playing at the hall on Thursday, April 8, with her quartet, sings musical material from Duke Ellington, Harry Warren, and Jerome Kern, as well as Paul Simon and Chick Corea.

"With my live music there's always a story behind the songs," she says.

"There's one song that's about how, out of a bad experience, something good can happen.

"We take people on a musical journey and no experience of jazz is required to listen to us, because it is fun.

"The main thing is for us to go out and share the music."

Tina says when growing up she didn't see jazz music as any different from other music, and she was singing Fats Waller classics at the age of five.

"I was singing it when the other children were singing nursery rhymes," she says.

"I thought it was magical and I wanted to be involved in jazz."

As a youngster, Tina played clarinet and started singing at the age of 16.

After doing part of her French degree course in Paris, she began singing there, before embarking on a career in musicals and theatre, and then moving back to London.

Tina now plays in the quartet with Nikki Iles on piano, Jeremy Brown on double bass and Tristan Mailliot on drums.

She regards jazz as music suitable for all ages from one to 101, and this is proved by the fact the quartet do workshops around schools, colleges and universities.

She revealed students and pupils learn harmonies and breathing techniques in the workshops.

"They can learn four-part harmonies by using their ears, and they tend to lose themselves in the music," she said.

"Especially with seven and eight-year-olds - they have such fun."

The singer, who was brought up in Gloucestershire, is described as "the finest jazz vocalist ever produced in Britain" by All Music Guide.

She has recorded nine CDs, and her latest CD, on Linn Records, I'll Take Romance, was released on Valentine's Day this year.

Her records can be bought from shops, over the internet or at her gigs.

Tickets for the Huntingdon Hall gig are £9, or £8 concessions.

For more details on Tina, go to her website on www.tinamay.com