Deidre Cartwright

Award winning guitarist and composer

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Deirdre Cartwright is an award winning guitarist and composer who became well known presenting the BBC TV’s ground-breaking series ‘Rockschool’. She also played with Afro Latin Jazz group The Guest Stars, recording three albums and toured in 17 countries.

Her latest project is the Organik Trio with Pete Whittaker and Gary Hammond. Deirdre is featured in ARQ, Sea Change, Carol Grimes & Friends, The Non Conformists and the party band the Electric Landladies. She plays regularly at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho and as a guest artist in UK jazz clubs. She also leads the group PICNIC with Annie Whitehead.

In 1991 she formed the Deirdre Cartwright Group which recorded five albums and played international festivals from Mexico to Warsaw. She has also written and recorded albums with the groups Emily Remembered and LUND.

She played two memorable gigs with legendary guitarist Tal Farlow at the Pizza Express Soho, studied in America with Mick Goodrick, toured with Jamaican composer Marjorie Whylie, founded Blow the Fuse with Alison Rayner in 1989 and presented on Radio 3.

She has also written seven books on guitar playing, was head of the guitar syllabus for the Rockschool exam series and presented her own radio show on Jazz London Radio.

More recently she has toured and recorded three albums with ARQ who won Best UK jazz group in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards and British Jazz Awards in 2018.

She won the public vote for Best Guitarist at the 2019 British Jazz Awards and in 2020 was awarded Services to Jazz with Blow the Fuse at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.

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Her sinewy guitar fronts a sparse trio who stretch out like a psychedelic 1960s blues band, but take the blind leaps of faith of improvisers. Highlights are the Nirvana grunge-fusion Smells Like Jazz and a sublime exploration of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights

Sunday Times

Cartwright’s coolly undulating Grant Green shuffle groove is one of the understated pleasure of UK’s contemporary fusion

The Guardian

Cartwright remains that most chameleon of players, able to summon the spirit of others while retaining her own voice

Jazzwise

If there is a more complete guitarist in contemporary music than Deirdre Cartwright – I’d like to know who it is

The Observer

Deidre Cartwright

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