During the past five decades, Salena has been a central figure on the British jazz scene.

In 1965, she was booked for the first time at Ronnie Scott’s for two weeks but, such was the audience reaction that she was held over for another week, and then another, eventually appearing for seven consecutive weeks – still a record after all this time.

Salena has sung with Louis Armstrong, Hank Jones, Ray Brown, Sarah Vaughan, Antonio Carlos Jobim, the BBC Big Band and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, thus moving beyond jazz. She has made forty-three solo albums and twenty two singles since her first recording was released in 1949.