Jazz singer Mads Mathias returns to London for two Soho shows in October

Mads Mathias returns to London on October 3 for a double header at PizzaExpress Live Soho on Dean Street, with sets at 6pm and 9pm. It is the Danish vocalist and saxophonist's first performance in Britain since 2018.

He likens the return to catching up with an old friend, pointing at the warmth and shared humour he built with British audiences almost a decade ago. Of the room itself he has said that "you can really connect and that is at the core of what I love about performing."

Between 2015 and 2018 his introduction to the British jazz scene went about as well as one can. His English delivery and his sax playing had critics and fans calling him Denmark's answer to Jamie Cullum, and club dates escalated from modest bookings to sold-out double shows.

That run reached the bigger stages quickly. Beyond festival appearances at Cheltenham and Cambridge, he was invited to the London Jazz Festival's opening night gala, Jazz Voice, at the Royal Festival Hall. Championed by the broadcaster and vocalist Clare Teal, he sang at the Royal Albert Hall as a featured guest on the BBC Proms big band show and fronted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall.

By 2018 PizzaExpress Dean Street had booked him for a four-show residency. Then the pandemic arrived, the momentum stopped, and he turned his attention to his Scandinavian base. Nearly eight years went by.

The October return coincides with Just the Way You Are, a digital-only record released on August 14 that is his first album given over to interpretations of existing standards rather than his own writing. The Soho sets mix that new material with his originals. The dates are logged on the tour guide with the rest of the autumn jazz calendar, which also includes the Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music and Swansea International Jazz Festival.