Elizabeth Shepherd and Michael Occhipinti will be playing songs from their latest ES:MO recording at Hugh's Room on Saturday.
ES:MO (Elizabeth Shepherd & Michael Occhipinti)
at Hugh's Room (296 Broadview Avenue)
Saturday, May 23
Show at 8pm, Doors at 7pm
$30+ in advance, $37+at the door
Elizabeth Shepherd and Michael Occhipinti (ES:MO) have been featured in each other's projects for almost a decade, with Elizabeth being the vocalist and pianist for Michael Occhipinti's The Universe of John Lennon, and Michael touring as the guitarist in Elizabeth's group promoting her albums Montreal and The Signal. Their duo album, The Weight of Hope, was nominated for a 2022 JUNO award and we can’t wait to hear their new album to be released at Hugh’s Room on Saturday May 23. Get tickets right here.
Check out the new video for the ES:MO version of Jason Isbell's "If We Were Vampires" along with a few tracks from the Sunshine In My Bones album out now. Get the album right here.
Singer/songwriter and pianist Elizabeth Shepherd takes a sharp turn from conventional jazz with the self-produced Three Things.
Here's the scoop...
Three weeks before the world went into lockdown, Elizabeth Shepherd had an epiphany. The self-described lone-wolf composer realized that she was, at heart, an improviser. She had invited Jasper Hoiby, a renowned Danish bass player, to spend a week working on music at her home in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal. The two musicians had never met but an easy friendship was accelerated by the intimate encounter of spending 8-12 hours a day making improvised music together.
Elizabeth Shepherd – Three Things
The experience made Shepherd yearn for more collaborations and she reached out to some of her favourite musicians. That's when the world came to standstill. “I was stuck at home with nobody to create with", says Shepherd. "In Quebec, we couldn’t even leave our homes after dark, let alone travel to meet up with other musicians”.
Shepherd had to find another way to ride her newfound creative wave. So she improvised. She turned to recordings she had made of her sprawling explorations with Hoiby and dissected them.
“I took snippets from our recordings, turned stuff upside down, added layers and synth parts, and came up with these songs. Then I sent them off to musician friends and asked them to add their parts. I ended up with this Frankenstein album that’s very different from what I've done before.”
Different, dense, and daring, Elizabeth Shepherd's self-produced new record Three Things (out February 17th via Pinwheel Music, pre-order it here: https://elizabethshepherd.com/store) is a career highpoint by a confident artist. For the better part of two decades, Shepherd's odd-meter, off-kilter funkiness has set her apart as a songwriter. The rhythmic complexity remains but, on Three Things, she often eschews more conventional verse-chorus structures for a sample-rich, sonic collage sometimes reminiscent of Kendrick Lamar. It's worth remembering that Shepherd once was an aspiring classical pianist who fell in love with jazz - via hip-hop.
What makes Three Things such a fascinating listen is the wealth of sound fragments coming together, sometimes for the briefest of moments, to produce a melody, to conjure meaning, only to fade away back into the ether. The clacking of typewriter keys morphs into a percolating banjo progression, squawking birds commune with a saxophone in full flight. Organic and electronic sounds intertwine seamlessly, sometimes into seismic rumbles and sizzling frequencies that bend and soar out of reach of the human ear. With this sonically saturated work Shepherd has thrown the doors of perception wide open, as if on a mission to show us that music is everywhere. On this, her seventh studio album, she comes across less as a composer and more like a wayfinder able to tear in the cosmic fabric a hole large enough to reveal a song.
Lyrically, the album touches on themes such as self-acceptance, bridging divides, and fraternal love. The title track is taken from a Biblical passage, as Shepherd attempts to distill her own faith-based cosmology; simply put, love is at the core of everything, and nothing else matters.
“I half jokingly refer to this as my gospel album” Shepherd says, aware of the minefield of religious connotations and stylistic references that term carries. Three Things charts a personal faith that uses music to look beyond oneself, to express gratitude and to connect - with the divine and with others.
“During the pandemic, this huge divide emerged, and it made me realize that I needed to safeguard myself from always surrounding myself with people who think like me – to break the echo chamber, if you will. Here’s someone I may never agree with, but ultimately, we all want the same things – shelter, fulfilment, love, what’s best for our kids - so let's start there.” Watch the video for "Time" following by a list of Elizabeth's upcoming tour dates which includes a Toronto album launch at 3030 Dundas West on March 23. Get tickets right here.
"Suits & Ties" is off songwriter/pianist Elizabeth Shepherd's ambitious Montréal recording and book project.
Writes Elizabeth Shepherd...
"Five years ago, I set out to interview people - complete strangers that I met on the street, at the market, in the subway - you name it. I asked them to tell me something about their story, their Montreal. I collected all kinds of tales - some humorous, some tragic, some outright bizarre. I then sifted through the interviews and narrowed them down to 11, which I then turned into songs. The bulk are in French, and some are in English. Each song tells someone's story, and refers to a specific location in Montreal. From there, the project exploded; I realized that I could place each of these locations that I was singing about on a map, and that they were all within walking distance of each other. I decided to create a 50-minute walk that, in the time it takes to listen to all 11 songs, would also physically take the listener through each of the places the songs were about - so people can actually walk the album, so to speak."
For those who can't be in Montreal, the 4-time JUNO nominee teamed up with filmmaker Stefan Verna to create what Stefan calls a "visual album" which will be projected behind the band as they play.
While Elizabeth's book about the project comes out with the vinyl release on Feb 8, the Montreal album is available digitally right now. The project charts an informal oral history of the city, focusing on stories that have been largely left out of the official narrative, like the history of jazz and the achievements of Montreal's black community, the gay rights movement which was pioneering in Canada, and much more. Watch the "Suits & Ties" video following the list of Elizabeth's upcoming shows.
Tour dates
November 28: Penticton, BC - The Dream Café
November 29: Canmore, AB - Artsplace
November 30: Calgary, AB - Lolita's
December 1: Saskatoon, SK - The Bassment
February 2: Val-David, QC - Église de Val-David February 8: Toronto, ON - The Music Gallery: CD, LP and BOOK LAUNCH
February 9: Montreal, QC – Le Ministere CD, LP and BOOK LAUNCH
February 20: Quebec City, QC - TBA
March 7: Cranbrook, BC – Auntie Barb’s
March 8: Kaslo, BC – Langham Theatre
March 9: Vernon, BC – The Vernon Jazz Club
November
01 A-Trane- Berlin, Germany
02 Blue Note, Dresden, Germany
03 JazzClub Birdland - Lubeck, Germany
04 Prinz Willy- Kiel, Germany
07 Pizza Express- London, UK
08 Badcuyp- Amsterdam, Holland
10 Jazzapanazz- Nimes, France
16 Upstairs- Montreal, QC
26-28 CIMA Mission- Tokyo, Japan
30 Massey Hall- Toronto, ON (opening for Molly Johnson)
December
01- Iris Jazz Club- Buffalo, NY
02- Sophistcations Jazz Cafe- Syracuse, NY TBA
04- Rockwood Music Hall- New York, NY
05- Two Moon Cafe- Brooklyn, NY
07- Nelson Odeon- Nelson, NY TBA
08- Goodbye Blue Monday- Brooklyn, NY
11- AVA Lounge- Pittsburgh, PHA
12- Tin Angel- Pittsbugh, PHA
13- Godfrey Daniels- Bethleham, PHA
14- Night Town- Cleveland, OH
15- Cliff Bell's- Detroit, MI
Just before taking off for a brief US tour, dazzling Toronto singer/pianist Elizabeth Shepherd will stop by the Distillery District to swing through few songs from her brilliant new Heavy Falls The Night (Do Right!) album during an intimate hour-long set at Young Centre for the Performing Arts (55 Mill Street, Building 49) tonight (Thursday, September 30) starting at 10:30 pm. Tickets are $20.
Shepherd's performance is part of the Global Cabaret Festival (formerly known as the Canwest Cabaret Festival) which involves 150 artists playing 60 concerts over four days from September 30 through October 3. Check out the festival site (www.globalcabaret.ca) for schedule information and tickets. Those who won't be able to make it out to the Distillery District to see Shepherd this evening, she'll be returning from her stateside jaunt to play a full show at the El Mocambo on Sunday (October 17).
Elizabeth Shepherd's US Tour
Oct 1 - Nighttown Cleveland, OH
Oct 2 - Cliff Bells Jazz Club Detroit, MI
Oct 4 - Shadow Lounge Pittsburgh, PA
Oct 6 - Rockwood Music Hall (6 pm) New York City, NY
Oct 6 - Goodbye Blue Monday (11 pm) Brooklyn, NY
Oct 7 - Lily Pad Cambridge, MA
Upcoming Canadian dates
Oct 10 - Divan Orange Montreal
Oct 15 - OCFF Ottawa
Oct 16 - Mercury Lounge Ottawa
Oct 17 - El Mocambo Toronto
Elizabeth Shepherd discusses Heavy Falls The Night
There's no shortage of jazz-lite shows around town this weekend with the Toronto Jazz Fest in full swing but if you're tastes run a bit deeper you should do yourself a favour and check out fast-rising vocalist José James and his Blackmagic band at Revival (783 College) tonight (Friday, July 2) along with Elizabeth Shepherd and DJs John Kong and Jason Palma. Have a listen to what James does with John Coltrane's Equinox and Resolution and you'll understand why the 31 year-old baritone is considered to be the hottest musical prospect out of Minneapolis since the Purple Wonder himself. Tickets are $25, doors open at 9 pm.
Equinox by José James
Resolution by José James
And while we're on the subject of Prince, that crazy caricature emblazoned tunic he was wearing on stage at the BET Awards on Sunday wasn't simply another head-scratching display of narcissism, the odd fashion statement was actually meant to be a promotional teaser for his new album, 20Ten.
Just as his Planet Earth album was distributed in the UK with the Mail On Sunday in 2007, the 10-track recording which Prince claims has "strong funk and new wave elements" (shock!) is being given away free as a cover-mount CD with various European newspapers and magazines. France's Courier International will have it first on July 8, followed by Belgium's Het Nieuwsblad, England's Daily Mirror, Scotland's Daily Record with their July 10 editions and then the German version of Rolling Stone will have it on July 22.
No date has been set for a North American release but with more than 2.5 million copies of 20Ten being distributed overseas, anyone interested in hearing it shouldn't have much difficulty finding it online next week.
20Ten track listing:
1. Compassion
2. Endlessly Beginning
3. Future Soul Song
4. Sticky Like Glue
5. Lavaux
6. Act Of God
7. Walk In Sand
8. Sea Of Everything
9. Everybody Loves Me
10. untitled bonus track
