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Laila Biali: Wintersongs
by Pierre Giroux
Laila Biali is an award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter and pianist whose recording Wintersongs offers an immersive journey into the delicate beauty and serene power of winter all through the lens of her jazz and classical roots. With two exceptions, all tracks were composed by Biali in a cabin surrounded by snow-capped mountains in the heart of Canada's Rocky Mountains. Many of Biali's usual collaborators participated in this production, including drummer Ben Wittman, renowned flutist and soprano saxophonist Jane Bunnett, accomplished trumpeter ...
Continue ReadingAllison Au: Migrations
by Dan McClenaghan
Canadian saxophonist Allison Au says she was drawn to the simplicity of a jazz quartet “as a vehicle for realizing the visions of my original compositions." Charlie Parker must have felt the same way; Art Pepper, too. And John Coltrane. Au stuck to this format for her Wander Wonder (Self Produced, 2018) and 2017's self-produced Forest Grove (review here). Both were terrific outings that spoke to the young artist's potential. But as with the noted giants mentioned above, Au must ...
Continue ReadingLaila Biali is taking requests
by Leo Sidran
Singer, pianist and songwriter Laila Biali recently released Your Requests (ACT Music), built around a collection of songs from the Great American Songbook that were requested by her fans. After a string of projects of her original songs and more contemporary covers, the album was a departure for her. After spending years living in New York, Laila moved back to her native Canada to raise her son, along with her husband, drummer and producer Ben Wittman, who she ...
Continue ReadingNicky Schrire: Nowhere Girl
by Dan Bilawsky
The search for identity is a sine qua non of any artist's experience and development. But for a musician like Nicky Schrire, it goes much deeper than most. Born in London, raised in South Africa, studying and entering the professional ranks in New York and working back through her initial points of origin before relocating to Toronto in 2020, this noted vocalist-composer has established herself as a globetrotter of the first order. Stylistically, as with geography, Schrire hits multiple points ...
Continue ReadingLaila Biali: Your Requests
by Dan Bilawsky
While the jazz pipeline produces plenty of artists who pay no mind to an audience's interests, those types--figures with tunnel vision, in many if not most ways--rarely reach their full potential. Instead, it's the musicians who make it a point to communicate who tend to forge the strongest bonds with those on the receiving end. Laila Biali is one such figure. This JUNO-winning gem of a vocalist, pianist, arranger and songwriter always manages to connect. Biali has a keen awareness ...
Continue ReadingLaila Biali's Jazz In The Age Of Lonely Hearts
by Sean Conroy
Releasing art into the wild is an act that is fraught with doubt and second guessing. These feelings are not unique to jazz artists, or even artists of this generation of immediate sharing and viral sensations. Writing of her friends' decision to surprise her by publishing her verse, 17th century American poet Anne Bradstreet was apologetic: a mother helplessly subjecting her child to public scrutiny. As a shield, a mother's love was not enough: “I cast thee by ...
Continue ReadingAmanda Tosoff: Earth Voices
by Dan Bilawsky
Building off the lure of language planted in Amanda Tosoff's Juno-nominated Words (Empress Music Group, 2016), this sixth album from the Toronto-based composer and pianist waves poetic in wondrous fashion. Pairing different guest vocalists and collections of musicians with personalized takes on Parnassian beauty of varied sorts, Tosoff cements the bonds between earthly voices and heavenly sounds with a questioning spirit. The list of subjects and styles, both in words and music, varies widely on this playlist. ...
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