Laila Biali: Wintersongs
1st November 2024
3 years in the making, the new album from multi-award-winning vocalist, pianist and composer Laila Biali offers a cinematic set of winter-themed original songs that feature JUNO-winner & GRAMMY- nominee Jane Bunnett, the Venuti String Quartet and chamber orchestra.
Release Date: November 1, 2024 (Independent Release)
18 months after the release of her critically acclaimed and JUNO-nominated jazz standards album, Your Requests, Laila Biali is back with an entirely fresh and original offering, marking her 10th recording as a bandleader. Composed from a cabin surrounded by snow-capped mountains during a writing retreat in the heart of Canada’s Rocky Mountains, ***Wintersongs ***is Biali’s musical love letter to winter.
For more than 10 years, Alberta’s **Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity **has been a creative haven for Biali, who expresses deep gratitude for the intensive independent residencies that have allowed space for the genesis of new work:
“The Banff Centre is where I go to meet my muse. I have been fortunate to spend time there in every season, but I was especially surprised at how much I loved winter. I was offered a 2-week residency as part of their Fleck Fellowship and arrived on campus in late November of 2021. Every day from dawn to dusk, all I could see and hear was music – in the awe-inspiring sunrises and sunsets behind mountain silhouettes, in the wind as it rose up through towering trees, and in snow that constantly shape-shifted from stillness to storm. Those images and that experience fill this suite of songs.”
With funding support from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council, Biali and her team moved this ambitious project from concept to realization. As new production ideas emerged, the vision for ***Wintersongs ***expanded to include not only Biali’s usual collaborators – like her longtime co-producer, drummer and husband Ben Wittman – but also one of the most in-demand orchestrators, Rob Mathes (Sting, Bruce Springsteen).
Biali comments, “Rob Mathes has been on my dream-list since I first heard his early work.. There was magic in his writing. He and (GRAMMY nominee) Drew Jurecka really brought grandeur and a spirit of play to Wintersongs through their string treatments.”
Another fresh collaborator for Biali is the highly-decorated flutist and soprano saxophonist Jane Bunnett, who will join Biali on an extensive tour in support of the album’s launch this November and December. Bunnett sparkles as she adds sweeping improvisational phrases and solos to both Rocky Mountain Lullaby, Biali’s ode to the majestic peaks of Banff National Park, and Dance of the Pines, a sonic journey inspired by flora, fauna and the aurora borealis. Other guests include the acclaimed trumpeter Kevin Turcotte, organ wizard Sam Yahel and the Detroit-born singer Wade O. Brown.
Together, they elevate one of the album’s more epic tracks, Outside (a Biali original) with such irresistibly hooky melodies, romantic imagery and opulent orchestration it could well become a contemporary seasonal classic.
The spirited original romp, Keep on Moving, takes off with soaring vocals from Joanna Majoko, Genevieve Marentette, and Jackson Welchner. Here the Venuti String Quartet (Rebekah Wolkstein, Drew Jurecka, Shannon Knights & Amahl Arulanandam) add their trademark virtuosity to George Koller’s formidable bass, Ben Wittman’s dynamic drums and Biali’s blistering piano. It is a stunning contrast to the album’s tender opening number, Drifting Down Ice, a warm invitation into a world of winter wonders as Biali’s vocalise floats overtop shimmering strings and **Lori Gemmel’**s lilting harp.
Gemmel makes an enchanting reappearance ensconced by Mathes’ ornate orchestral voicings on the lyrical ballad, Snow.
Winter Waltz is a charming instrumental version of the French chanson she co-wrote with Sonia Johnson, released last year as Belle nuit de Noël. It’s a whimsical nod to Vince Guaraldi (A Charlie Brown Christmas) that shines a spotlight on the Venuti String Quartet, with a masterful arrangement and bandoneon playing from Drew Jurecka. The album concludes with Jesus, He is Born (Iesous ahatonnia’), a 17th-century carol first attributed to Jean de Brébeuf that most listeners will recognize as “The Huron Carol.” Following extensive conversations with the Wendat artist, Andrée Lévesque Sioui, who is decolonizing this traditional song with her own brilliant re-written verses, Biali felt it was crucial to strip away John Middleton’s English lyrics, to offer an instrumental arrangement she hopes will help create space and open up dialogue about Lévesque Sioui’s important work.
Wintersongs draws us into an organic experience that feels entirely new and yet achingly familiar – uncharted terrain that resonates with the strong echoes of home.