Freddy Gillmore

His grandmother’s old upright piano.

Raised in the isolated English countryside, Freddy began playing his grandmother's old upright piano as a child before joining a local jazz band — the first indication of an instinct for ensemble playing that would shape everything that followed.

A musical education no institution provides.

At 18 he moved to the city and spent years performing in bars, restaurants and jazz clubs: late nights, poor pay, and an education no institution provides. It was in those rooms that his writing began to absorb the textures of urban nightlife, and where the tension between his jazz piano roots and a broader alt-rock and soul influence started to resolve into something coherent.

Piano as the centre of gravity.

Piano is not an instrument Freddy Gillmore plays. It is the centre of gravity around which everything else orbits. Rooted in jazz but shaped by alt-rock guitar and Northern Soul, his music sits in a genuinely unusual place — cinematic and emotionally precise, with a vocal delivery that moves between Jeff Buckley's intensity and something closer to Paolo Nutini or Rag'n'Bone Man in the lower registers.

There is real range in the catalogue: the dark, dramatic sweep of Albatross, the Lana Del Rey-influenced stillness of Green Eyed Lullaby, a soul and funk sensibility inherited from years fronting a live band, and a waltz-time dramatic instinct that appears more than once. It is the range that is interesting.

Fronting The Signatures.

Now based in London, Freddy fronts The Signatures, an eleven-piece Northern Soul live band who play over fifty dates a year nationwide, headlining The Jazz Café and Camden Electric among others. The Signatures are the BBC 6 Music house band and have backed Tommy Hunt, Eddie Holman and Gloria Jones.

Solo, he performs piano-vocal — no band overhead, a house piano and a room is all he needs. A monthly residency at the Troubadour, Earl's Court, begins August 2026, with strategic dates at Servant Jazz Quarters, Green Note and the Half Moon to follow.

Signed, with the strongest work still unreleased.

Freddy signed to Cream Collective Management in June 2026. His solo catalogue spans eight original compositions; the Your Mind EP (2023) is on Spotify, while the stronger solo material — Nepo Baby, Running and Green Eyed Lullaby — is held for the managed campaign. His solo debut follows in late 2026.