Jan. 16, 2008 - Issue #639: Art Attack

Jazzwoman, take my blues away

When you hear Elizabeth Shepherd’s cool, assured vocals gliding across notes and half-notes, you may find it hard to believe that only a handful of years ago she wasn’t even thinking of being a professional musician.

Sure, she studied jazz piano at McGill University, but Shepherd thought she might use that education to teach or get into music therapy. In watching her brother go through a lengthy post-car-accident rehabilitation, however, Shepherd was brought face to face with what she really wanted out of life: to play music for people.

“Seeing him go through that and deal with that made me really take stock in my own life,” she explains. “Like, ‘What is it that you truly want to do?’ Because you never know what’s going to happen. And if it’s fear that’s holding you back, that’s just not good enough.

“I mean, I always wanted to be a performer, but didn’t really allow myself to dream that,” she adds. “Sometimes it just takes a catalyst, you know, or some sort of event.”

Since banding with bassist Scott Kemp and drummer Colin Kingsmore to form the Elizabeth Shepherd Trio, the Torontonian and her bandmates have caused a ripple of excitement through the jazz world and beyond.

The group’s debut CD—Start to Move, released Jul 2006—was nominated for a vocal jazz Juno in 2007 and BBC Radio 1’s Gilles Peterson ranked it the third best jazz album of the year in 2006. An album of dancefloor remixes and b-sides—Besides, released last September—will definitely keep the momentum going until the trio releases its next album in the spring.
While there’s many who poo-poo jazz as something incomprehensible and elitist (odd, considering its origins), Shepherd and her band’s music tickle such a happy place that it’s hard to resist the temptation to boogie along with their soulful, funkified jazz-a-liciousness, and there are few to no Canadian acts delving heavily into a similar nu-jazz aesthetic.

Shepherd’s scatting plays off of her piano riffs and the rhythm of her beat masters. The music is full of opposites: both casual and focused, both familiar and original are things music writers are saying. But it’s also the kind of music that would provide a relaxed aural backdrop as well as put some jump in your step, get you ready for a night on the town. If there is any group out there that’s going to re-ignite a passion for the genre in Canada, it’ll be this trio.

It does get a little lonely at home, however. When the musicians travel overseas to perform, they find kindred spirits and flourishing scenes, but here they sometimes get comments about not being “jazz enough.”

“I feel like sometimes I’m existing in a bubble, and it’s kind of like it would be really nice to be involved in a community of people who were doing this thing—like, on a similar kind of wavelength,” Shepherd admits. “‘Cause I go to Japan or Europe and feel like, yeah, this is happening over there. There’s this aesthetic that we fit right into and I don’t find that here. So I find it kind of discouraging, if anything. And just, like, remind me why I’m doing this again?—that sort of thing—at its worst. And at its best, it’s, like, yeah! I’m just doing my thing.”

Just keep on doing your thing, Shepherd. We needn’t ask for anything more than that. V



Fri, Jan 18 (7:30 pm)
Elizabeth
Shepherd Trio
Festival Place, $28 - $32

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