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Laila Biali

Multi award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist and CBC Music national radio host Laila Biali has headlined festivals and venues spanning five continents from New York City’s Carnegie Hall to Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, and supported international icon Sting. In 2020, Laila was honoured by SOCAN Music with the Hagood Hardy Award for Excellence in Songwriting. In 2019, Laila’s eponymous release won her a JUNO (Canada’s GRAMMY) for “Vocal Jazz Album of the Year.” The year prior, she was awarded top prize at the Canadian Songwriting Competition in the Jazz category. Laila was also the youngest-ever double winner at Canada’s National Jazz Awards when she was named “SOCAN Composer of the Year” and “Keyboardist of the Year.” She received her first JUNO nomination for Tracing Light (2011), and a spot on DownBeat Magazine’s “Best Albums of the Year” for Live in Concert (2013) and Out of Dust (2020). In September of 2017, Laila was brought on as the host for CBC Music’s national radio show, Saturday Night Jazz, a weekly show broadcast to listeners across Canada. While Laila continues to earn high honours in the Jazz world, her signature sound transcends genre as she “masterfully mixes jazz and pop, bringing virtuosity and unpredictability to songs that are concise and catchy” (Washington Post). Laila’s highly anticipated album, Out of Dust, which features multiple GRAMMY nominees and winners including Lisa Fischer, Alan Ferber, John Ellis, and Larnell Lewis, released March 27, 2020 and was also nominated for a 2021 JUNO Award.

Awards

• 2018: won Canadian Songwriting Competition, Jazz category, for original song Satellite • 2016: nominated for the 2016 Premier’s Awards for Outstanding College Graduates • 2012: Nominated for BCTC Award - Touring Act of the Year • 2011: Nominated for a JUNO Award - Vocal Jazz Album of the Year • 2006: Selected by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to represent Canada as pianist in international ensemble, Swinging Europe, under the direction of BBC Big Band composer and conductor, Barry Forgie • 2005: Youngest double winner at National Jazz Awards – SOCAN Composer of the Year and Keyboardist of the Year • 2004: Fraser McPherson Jazz Scholarship recipient (British Columbia) • 2003: Fish Middleton Jazz Scholarship recipient (North American wide competition) • 2003: Issued CBC-Galaxie Rising Star Award at National Jazz Awards (*award issued for original big band composition/arrangement, And Not a Dream) • 2001: Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) Scholarship


Tags

15
Album Review

Allison Au: Migrations

Read "Migrations" reviewed 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 ...

1
Radio & Podcasts

Laila Biali is taking requests

Read "Laila Biali is taking requests" reviewed 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 ...

3
Album Review

Nicky Schrire: Nowhere Girl

Read "Nowhere Girl" reviewed 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 ...

6
Album Review

Laila Biali: Your Requests

Read "Your Requests" reviewed 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 ...

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Profile

Laila Biali's Jazz In The Age Of Lonely Hearts

Read "Laila Biali's Jazz In The Age Of Lonely Hearts" reviewed 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 ...

6
Album Review

Amanda Tosoff: Earth Voices

Read "Earth Voices" reviewed 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. ...

10
Album Review

Laila Biali: Out Of Dust

Read "Out Of Dust" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


There's no boxing Laila Biali in. A sharp-minded songwriter, respected pianist and celebrated vocalist who straddles jazz and pop with unusual ease and strength of vision, Biali is truly beyond category. Possessing clear eyes, a perceptive mien and a sharpshooters's gifts in regard to emotional aim, she often expresses more in a single breath than others do in an entire album. Capable of making you laugh and cry all at once, her delivery out of dust is divine.

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Performance / Tour

Off Tour With Sting, Laila Biali Is In Residency At Subculture May 10, 24 & 31 With Guests John Ellis, Jo Lawry And Zach Brock / The Requestomatic Audience Challenge

Off Tour With Sting, Laila Biali Is In Residency At Subculture May 10, 24 & 31 With Guests John Ellis, Jo Lawry And Zach Brock / The Requestomatic Audience Challenge

Source: JANLYN PR - Jana La Sorte

Award-winning Canadian pianist, vocalist and songwriter Laila Biali has toured with Grammy award-winners Suzanne Vega, Chris Botti and Paula Cole and has recorded with and supported pop icon Sting. Laila has an acute awareness and appreciation for pop and rock that she combines with her jazz training to create thrilling arrangements. Her recent CD, Live in Concert, captures the intimacy and excitement she generates on stage and the range of music she makes her own from Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, ...

"It is the ultimate task given to the musician, whether as singer or instrumentalist, to create a unique signature or fingerprint that is instantly recognisable as their own. What is surprising and delightful in Laila Biali is that both as vocalist and pianist she accomplishes this with equal aplomb. She is an exciting and unique talent, and I admire her greatly." —Sting “The album’s production is shimmering, the arrangements are lush and Biali’s voice – spanning registers – is pure and warm. She’s also fearless on piano and, above else, in her imagination

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Kurt Elling
vocals
Diana Krall
piano and vocals
Snarky Puppy
band / ensemble / orchestra

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Nowhere Girl

Anzic Records
2023

buy

Your Requests

Empress Music Group (North America) / ACT Music (Europe) / CORE PORT (Japan)
2023

buy

Migrations

Self Produced
2023

buy

Earth Voices

Empress Music Group
2021

buy

Out Of Dust

ACT Music
2020

buy

LAILA BIALI

ACT Music (Europe only), Chronograph Records (Canada only)
2018

buy

Racing Across the Land

From: Migrations
By Laila Biali

Bye Bye Blackbird

From: Your Requests
By Laila Biali

Traveler

From: Nowhere Girl
By Laila Biali

Love Is For The Birds

From: Nowhere Girl
By Laila Biali

Finis

From: Earth Voices
By Laila Biali

Videos

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