“So the second half of the album is a love story unfolding,” she says. During their six months together another arrangement evolved: Webster became Barlow’s romantic partner. Along the way, she took a creative detour to a hideaway on Mexico’s Pacific Coast where most of Clear Day’s arrangements were written with bassist Steve Webster. (And who said the big band era was dead?)īarlow’s big move was away from Toronto into her new condo in Montreal’s hot and hip Le Plateau area. Add to the tally the 70-piece Metropole Orkest out of Holland, playing on most of the album’s 14 tracks recorded in Amsterdam. The idea of big plays out in Clear Day, her 11th album, getting a Massey Hall showcase Wednesday with a stage-packing 65-piece orchestra that includes Brian Barlow, her father, playing percussion. “And I learned along the way I’m a person who likes to take risks,” the singer-arranger says. Think big was her reaction, change vistas and reinvent oneself. To most of us this scenario might lead to wailing some blues in a cold empty room. It won the Juno Award for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year.A romance ending. The album showcased jazz reworkings of modern pop, rock, and folk standards, including songs by David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and others. In 2015 she returned with Clear Day, which featured backing from the Dutch Metropole Orkest. A concert album, Live in Tokyo, followed in 2014. Much lauded, the album earned the singer her first Juno Award win for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year, as well as an ADISQ Award for Album of the Year - Jazz Interpretation. In 2011, Barlow delivered Seule Ce Soir, her ninth studio recording and first sung entirely in French. Two more Juno Award-nominated albums followed with 2009's Haven't We Met and 2010's The Beat Goes On. The following year, she won Female Vocalist of the Year at Canada's National Jazz Awards. A third Rhythm Tracks album, Happy Feet, appeared in 2003.īarlow then founded her own Empress Music Group and delivered a handful of well-received albums, including 2005's Like a Lover, 2006's holiday-themed Winter Wonderland, and 2007's The Very Thought of You, for which she earned her third Juno Award nomination. Both albums were released independently in Canada on the Rhythm Tracks label, and both garnered Juno Award nominations for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. She co-produced her first album, Emilie-Claire Barlow Sings, with her father in 1998 before recording Tribute (also co-produced with Brian Barlow) in 2000. She went on to become quite active on Toronto's jazz scene, and in 1997 she and her father formed the Barlow Group - an acoustic-oriented octet whose soloists have included trombonist Russ Little and saxman John Johnson. By the time she was seven, Emilie-Claire Barlow was singing for television and radio commercials. Not surprisingly, the drummer instilled an appreciation of jazz in his daughter and encouraged her to sing and to study several instruments, including piano, violin, cello, and clarinet. Her father is jazz drummer Brian Barlow, who has also recorded as Brian Leonard and is best known for his work with the Boss Brass (a Canadian big band led by trombonist Rob McConnell). Born in Toronto in 1976, Barlow grew up in a musical family. Toronto's Emilie-Claire Barlow is a Juno Award-winning singer with a warm, lithe vocal style and a knack for tackling urbane jazz standards.
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