Musician Fliss Gorst is all set for a warm home-coming when she brings her six-piece swing band to play at the Jazz Jurassica festival in Lyme Regis.

The festival will be held over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, and Fliss, who went to school in Lyme, will perform on Friday, May 25 at 8pm.

May’s event comes hot on the heels of Fliss's sell out show at Seaton’s Gateway last year. As a former student of Woodroffe School’s music department in Lyme Regis, she’ll play in the town which did so much to nurture her musical talent. She returns not only with a top-class band of musicians plus a couple of vocal powerhouses in tow but as one of the few female bandleaders in the country and a debut album in the iTunes jazz chart.

Fliss was born and brought up in Axminster but now lives in London. Acquiring her first saxophone at the tender age of 14, she soon found herself playing in local jazz bands. She studied at Exeter College and then the Birmingham Conservatoire where the jazz bug began to bite.

She said: “I was enrolled on a classical course, but I was attracted to jazz where there was more scope to express yourself creatively, but the jazz course was full of boys, who had bags of confidence - it was a bit intimidating. Afterwards I worked on cruise ships for three and half years, playing every day with a variety of musicians, and then made the big move to London”.

Initially she set up Jivestar, a jive and rock and roll band “but I guess my tastes have changed somewhat since then. I don’t want to be pigeonholed by a band title”. The move from Jivestar to Fliss Gorst Band signals more than just a name change. It’s a sign of a growing confidence in her own arrangements and compositions that has led to a successful debut album, The Place for Me, released in March.

“The title represents my inner struggle with my love for London and my home county of Devon. I wouldn’t be able to live the life I live without my connection to either of these places. My parent’s house in Axminster is my regular bolt hole to escape city life”.

The pressure-cooker life in London where Fliss combines playing and teaching leave little time for rest and recuperation. She’s one of the few successful female bandleaders in a male-dominated profession. For this you have to be a very talented musician in your own right and possess a steely single-mindedness to win over your male colleagues. It’s a challenge she pulls it off with charm and aplomb. As she herself says “you have to balance being assertive and someone musicians want to be around. You need to earn their respect as well as their friendship”.

Fliss acknowledges the support of some fantastic musicians – including Dave Borazon on trumpet (“my right-hand man”) and Liam Dunachie on piano (“one of the best”). And two vocalists in the shape of Lauren Bush and Shane Hampsheir, who are outstanding performers in their own right. “Lauren’s a highly acclaimed Canadian jazz singer, who brings pizzaz to every song she sings. And swing’s in Shane’s DNA - his recent solo gig at Ronnie Scott’s sold out. He’s Mr Ratpack personified!”.

According to Julie Sheppard, of Jazz Jurassica, audiences are in for a treat. “It’ll be a potent cocktail of sparky swing standards, jumping jives and dazzling dance numbers – it’ll be slick, hugely entertaining and fun, with lots of onstage banter amongst eight friends who obviously love playing together”.

*Fliss Gorst Band, Friday May 25, 8pm, Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis. See jazzjurassica.co.uk for tickets or call the box office on 01297 442138. This event is part of Jazz Jurassica – Lyme’s festival of jazz from May 24 to May 28.