Creative inspiration can strike in the most unlikely places.
Jazz musician Laila Biali was on the subway, travelling home to Brooklyn with her five-month-old son Joshua in tow after having attended a party full of "fabulous, single New York folks." As the train car rumbled forward, she couldn't help but think how much her life had changed since becoming a mother. Joshua had been a surprise. Just one year earlier, when Biali learned she was pregnant, the North Vancouver-raised pianist and singer was on tour with Sting. Joshua's arrival meant she and her husband, drummer Ben Wittman, had to turn down some major career opportunities.
"Obviously the demands of motherhood are great, so I didn't feel that I had the option of picking up and leaving home and going on tour — no matter how great the proposal," she says.
Reflecting on the unexpected path her life had taken, Biali looked down at her baby boy and tried to imagine life without him.
"There was really no question at that point," she says, "I wouldn't have traded him for anything, and that was when I started the lyrics for the song 'Little Bird.'"
"Little Bird" is one of 11 tracks off Biali's latest album House of Many Rooms, released this week under Laila Biali and the Radiance Project. It's her first album of entirely original material and her first album that departs from the jazz genre, venturing into pop-oriented territory. After graduating from Humber College in Toronto, she moved to New York City to pursue her jazz career and made a name for herself covering the music of other artists. The Juno nominee has performed all over the world and has toured with the likes of Paula Cole and Suzanne Vega.
"While I was working with these singer-songwriters and being exposed to their music and witnessing the deep connection that was happening between them and their listeners as they were sharing their original songs and stories, I was really compelled to begin exploring songwriting myself in the cracks and crevices of life on the road and my own solo career as a jazz musician," she says.
For several years Biali plugged away at songwriting, finding lyrical inspiration in her personal life, current events and the stories of friends. She wrote "Sparrow" after hearing that her friend's sister had lost her twins eight months into her pregnancy.
"I was so stunned and profoundly devastated by her news that I was immediately driven to process at the piano and I wanted to capture what I was feeling, I wanted to write a song that could be dedicated to her and that I could have the opportunity to share with her."
One after another, Biali put these songs on the back burner until Wittman begged to hear them.
"Through tears I played this music for him because I found it so difficult to share such deep and personal music. It felt very risky to me and very vulnerable."
Wittman encouraged her to record the songs and ended up co-producing House of Many Rooms with her. Grand in scope, the album has an anthemic quality thanks to the addition of a gospel choir, brass quartet, bass clarinet and string orchestra.
"It was nerve-racking for me," Biali says of putting her original music out there. "Releasing this album was higher risk than anything I had ever done in the past and so I was both nervous and excited. It almost felt akin to the first day of school."
Biali has formed a sextet for the cross-Canada album release tour, including herself on piano and vocals and Wittman on drums. Their son Joshua, now almost five, is coming along too.
Though she admits it may sound a tad cliché, Biali says it has always been her goal to take listeners on a journey. She hopes House of Many Rooms achieves that goal.
"My tastes are really diverse and the music is really diverse so we hope that will result in listeners experiencing a great range of colour and emotion and styles that I would love to think about as being a bit of a journey for them," she says, adding, "We hope that the music will be cathartic for people, that it'll reach them and connect with them."
Meanwhile, Biali has already started working on her next jazz album, but is planning another Radiance Project installment after that's done.
"I'll be on an alternating schedule with both projects," she says. "In a perfect world, our best case scenario would be that we capture listeners on both sides and that there's some cross-pollination that happens."
Laila Biali and the Radiance Project play the Fox Cabaret, April 17, 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $15, available at foxcabaret.com.
