The Canadian jazz musician, Elizabeth Shepherd, returns with her fifth album, excluding her 2007 remix album, Besides. The Signal was released in North America in September last year, and has will be released in Europe next week.
Her music has never been easy to categorize. As a pianist, she claims to have been influenced by the likes of Bill Evans, Abdullah Ibrahim and Herbie Hancock, but the heavy use of Rhodes piano ensures that the sound of Hancock that comes across most clearly here. But soul and funk have also been an important part of her palette; her earlier CDs saw her cover the likes of Stevie Wonder, and she was championed by the influential UK DJ, Gilles Peterson, and featured on his Worldwide radio show.
2012’s Rewind was recorded while she was pregnant, and featured none of her own compositions. Instead, she focused on songs that was listening to at that time, and had influenced her over the years. Whilst the arrangements were fairly straightforward, she stamped her own authority on each tune, and was subsequently nominated for a Juno Award – Canada’s Grammy equivalent.
The Signal marks a significant departure. The album is harmonically and rhythmically far more complex, and as a consequence, is more challenging too. It is also more ambitious from a lyrical perspective, tacking a range of issues that matter to her as a woman and as a mother.
The first half of the album is quite striking. The opening track, Willow, features African jazz guitarist Lionel Loueke – who has worked with the likes of Herbie Hancock and Gretchen Parlato. His guitar and chant combine well with the crisp sound of her keyboard, and the effect is spellbinding. What’s Happening is performed by her mainstay trio of Scott Kemp on bass and Colin Kingsmore on drums, and opens with a funky keyboard riff. The chorus is catchy, with Shepherd layering her vocals to good effect. B.T. Cotton opens with an excerpt of blues singer Lead Belly talking about picking cotton, before giving way to a cool bass line. The lyrics address the tough conditions in the Indian cotton industry in a subtle manner, never sounding preachy.
The title track is based on a sample from a radio talk show, and is a duet featuring singer Alex Samaras. The lyrics describe an unconventional love story, a couple that agree to meet at a given time and place in the future, and is one of the album’s highlights.
Other songs on the album don’t work as well. The lyrics of Lion’s Den address the issue of child rape in Africa, but the music is less compelling, lacking a memorable hook. I Gave, a tribute to Mother Theresa, suffers from the same fate, and leaves the second half of the album somewhat patchy after a strong opening.
The press release makes comparisons with ‘crossover’ artists such as Robert Glasper and Esperanza Spalding, but in truth, The Signal is probably less commercial than her previous recording. It is, however, a bold and ambitious album, and when everything comes together, manages to be both cool and creative.