Lucinda Peters is clearly out of the ordinary. After all, jazz artists seldom explode like star-bursts upon an unsuspecting audience. Rather they tend to rise steadily in stature, gradually gaining experience and finding what it is they want to express. No one seems to have told Lucinda that.

She seemed to suddenly arrive on the Sydney jazz scene only a couple of years ago, immediately lighting it up with her sensual, stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks voice and unassuming yet utterly captivating stage presence. Before she had an album to her name, or had played any bigger gigs than restaurants and bars, she was put on the cover of The Sydney Morning Herald’s "Metro" entertainment guide. Who else has managed that? She was there because the total package is so remarkable: her voice, her presence, her double-bass playing and songs that are worthy of having been written by much more mature and famed composers.

Of course she didn’t burst out of a vacuum. She grew up in a musical family in Adelaide, surrounded by the sounds of violin, cello, harp, piano, organ, and recorders. Lucinda began learning the piano at the age of five, then classical guitar at six. Fifteen years of studying classical guitar gave her the background to be able to pick up the double-bass with relative ease, in it finding a highly unusual backing for her singing, which became her true, overriding passion.

Through the mid-1990s she sang and played bass with the Aboriginal group, Mixed Relations Band, which took her all around Australia, as well as to New Zealand, Norfolk Island, America and England. She then settled on jazz as the medium, which allowed her the greatest freedom of expression. "How can all that knowledge that’s been laid before you like a carpet be a limitation?" she asked the Herald’s jazz writer, John Shand. "It’s a foundation to rest on."

She described the inspiration of the artists she most admired - Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf and Sarah Vaughan, among others - as giving her "permission to be myself". "When I’ve been really inspired by a performer it’s because they have really opened to the audience, and really given something of who they are," she observed.

With that ability to give so much to the listener, there was no holding Lucinda back. She soon attracted the support of that famed national treasure and jazz icon, Don Burrows. With Don’s advice and encouragement she planned her first album, the tender and euphoric Show Me The Way To Your Heart, For this stunning debut she has attracted the talents of the cream of the Australian jazz scene, including pianists Kevin Hunt and Sean Wayland, guitarist James Muller, vibraphonist Daryl Pratt and drummers Simon Barker and Nick McBride, as well as the inimitable Burrows himself.

But as exceptional as the musical company she keeps is, the real stars of the album are Lucinda’s delightful songs and her impossibly pure voice. "Singing is something that I couldn’t not do," she says. The rest of us should be glad. In the last few years since the success of her fist album Show Me The Way To Your Heart, Lucinda has had the opportunity to tour two consecutive years to Europe and the United States.

In 2003 she performed for a season as part of the Fringe festival In Edinburgh followed by a low key performance in Paris , London and New York. This was done alone picking up musicians and was supported by Little Big Music. In the same year she had Show Me The Way To Your Heart feature in Jane Champions film, In The Cut, starring Meg Ryan.

The following year with the support of the Arts Council Of Australia she was able to return to Europe along with Australian guitarist James Muller and drummer Simon Barker. The tour took them back to Paris to play with pianist Pierre Chrostoff. Also to London to play a sell out show at the famous Pizza Express in Dean St. This was followed by 3 gigs in New York City and a private concert in Los Angeles. All this travelling has given Lucinda foo for the new material and for a bit more inspiration she spent some time in Australian outback breathing in the Desert Stars an experience which was to become the inspiration for the title track of her most recent CD.

In 2005 Lucinda began recording her new album, 'Desert Stars' at BJB Studios in Sydney which has just been completed at Sony STUDIOS with Ross A'hern. She is very excited about having yet another opportunity to tour in Ausralia to launch the CD in Tambourine Mt, Byron Bay, Melbourne, Sale, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Darwin, Sydney and Katoomba. The tour concerts will feature a band of exptremely fine improvisers who are sure to bring life and creativity to Lucinda's songs.

Suitable as wedding entertainment, corporate functions, clubs and private parties.

Listen to Sample track CLICK HERE (shrink screen and continue to browse, will take a minute to download - worth the wait).