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Elizabeth Shepherd takes her audience on a musical journey

Soul jazz musician performing with NiteCap at Capilano University
Elizabeth Shepherd
Elizabeth Shepherd’s latest album, The Signal, was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize as best Canadian album.

Elizabeth Shepherd with NiteCap at The BlueShore at Cap on Tuesday, Nov. 24 at 8 p.m. Tickets $28/$24. For more information visit capilanou.ca.

While on tour, silky smooth jazz vocalist Elizabeth Shepherd has journeyed across North America, Europe, Japan and Mexico. That can mean, as she noted on Twitter, one day waking up in a hotel room with a view of the golden beaches of Puerto Vallarta and then a few days later looking out on the pristine, snow-capped mountains in B.C. Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, touring can also be a grind. Speaking from Nelson, B.C., a few hours before her show, she explains that she's been on the road for two weeks. Prior to that she was home for 10 days. The rest of this month will be spent mostly on the road.

"There are parts of it I really enjoy. I've been having the good fortune of playing with a lot of different musicians and a different band in Mexico, a different band that I've used also on this tour (of British Columbia) and two different bands for the recent Quebec tour," she says. "So that is inspiring just to hear these songs being done in a new way." She says touring isn't glamorous and "the best part by far each night is playing. You know other than that it's kind of hard." If you haven't listened to Shepherd here's a primer: She's a three-time Juno nominee and two-time Polaris long list artist - and the only jazz vocalist to have ever been nominated for the prestigious prize.

She's released four critically-acclaimed albums and her latest is titled The Signal and features acclaimed Herbie Hancock guitarist Lionel Loueke. She's been described as "a jazz virtuoso blessed with a pop sensibility" and wowed audiences around the globe, from tiny clubs to famous festivals and stages. Here's how she describes her sound: "I would say, it's sort of political, electro, soul jazz."

She adds that she doesn't "neatly fit into one genre," which is probably why she has such a diverse fan base. So what's on her personal playlist these days? "Anything that's soulful so that could be Janelle Monáe or Eric Bibb, Avishai Cohen or The Roots, Stevie Wonder is always in steady rotation. It's not explicitly jazz, just anything that is soulful, that's kind of my one criteria," she says.

In order to fully experience Shepherd's music, it's probably best to see her perform live. "I like to talk and to contextualize and let people in on the song and what it is about, in case they miss the lyrics at least they have some sort of context to place it within," she says. "I always find that people come up to me afterwards and say I really appreciated knowing that or hearing that, it resonated with me. I like telling stories." Shepherd's band is a five-piece that includes, trumpets, guitars, drums and her on keys and voice.

"Because we are five people I try and do as much as possible with those five. So I could have two people on stage at one point or all five of us or three people singing backup because they are all very versatile musicians," she explains. "So really just a mixture. You know this last album, The Signal, is the one that we're doing a lot of material from and it was really developed in the style of a old golden era like the '70s when albums were experimental and took you on a journey. So I really try and do that with the show too, that we have some songs that sort of blend one into the other and you sort of feel that you've travelled at the end of it and go 'Wow, OK I've been somewhere.'"

Shepherd performs at The Blue Shore Financial Centre for the Performing Art, 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver, B.C., on Tuesday Nov. 24. Show time is 8 p.m. and tickets are $25-28. Tickets can be purchased at tickets.capilanou.ca/TheatreManager/1/login?event=933.

Elizabeth Shepherd Discography:

- Start To Move (Elizabeth Shepherd Trio) (Do Right Music 2006)

- Besides: Remixes B-Sides (Do Right Music 2007)

- Parkdale (Do Right Music 2008)

- Heavy Falls The Night (Do Right Music 2010)

- Rewind (Pinwheel Music/Linus Entertainment 2012)

- The Signal (Linus Entertainment 2014)