Toronto
June 15,16,17 2011
Idealist News
Why the Olympic anthem will mark a key transition for jazz sensation
With the help of Feist and Sexsmith, Nikki Yanofsky takes on the pop world
Nikki Yanofsky is about to have her moment.
The scatting prodigy from Montreal, heretofore a beguiling hit at on the jazz festival circuit, is moving to popular music. Diana Krall, Norah Jones- move it on over, the little girl is about to come in.
"I'm never going to stop singing jazz," Miss Yanofsky said,"but I don't intend to stop singing pop, blues and soul."
Even before her first studio album, which will include both pop and jazz, is released in April, Miss Yanofsky's voice will be widely heard as part of the soundtrack to the Vancouver Olympics. She's not scheduled to perform at the Winter Games, but there's a good chance she'll show up at the opening or closing ceremonies. She is among the singers chosen to record I Believe, the broadcast theme for the Games. It's an oversized anthem sung assuredly by a girl of just 15. But, then, who else should sing an Olympic theme but a promising young artist who happens to sing torch.
"It's a song about believing in your dream," Miss Yanofsky said from her home in the Montreal suburb of Hampstead. "I was able to sing it with such passion, because I believe in that."
She began singing at an early age, making her Montreal jazz festival debut in 2006 at age 12 in front of 125,000 people. In a hotel overlooking the throng, she was not intimidated.
"They looked like ants," the Ella Fitzgerald devotee recalls. Her mother, at her side, was worried that her daughter would be unnerved. She needn't have been. "I said, 'Let's go,' and I hit the elevator button to head down."
Now the singer who tackled sophisticated torch songs such as the bluesy, emotive At Last (My Love Has Come Along) with unusual authority and nuance by age 14, is crossing over into the pop world with her album set for release on Universal Music Canada and Decca worldwide. The recording will feature a half-dozen jazz covers, but also original material by Juno-winning singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, and Jesse Harris (a collaborator with U.S. recording artist Norah Jones), and Miss Yanofsky herself. As well, the popular 1234 singer Leslie Feist has contributed a song.
"The new album will be very different," said Miss Yanofsky, whose 2008 live tribute album Ella ... Of Thee I Swing earned her two Juno nominations. "It's going to give people a taste of what I like to listen to."
Miss Yanofsky, a fan of classic rock as well as Billie Holiday and Stevie Wonder, describes the material from the still-to-be titled album as "sophisticated pop."
Universal Music Canada president and CEO Randy Lennox, who discovered Miss Yanofsky at a Canadian Music Week showcase in 2006, is awed at her potential.
"Her basis clearly is in jazz and standards, but already she's shown her expansion into the pop world," said Mr. Lennox, referring to the Olympic song. "I was overwhelmed that she could transition from jazz to sing this song, as easily as the rest of us would shift from salad to the main course."
Mr. Lennox described his prize singer as "malleable," and views Miss Yanofsky as "worldwide priority" for Universal and Decca."We can pretty much go anywhere with this artist, and she has the discipline to match her gift."
For her part, Miss Yanofsky is aware of her gift and what it takes to utilize it. "It's one thing to be on the right track, but you can't just sit there. You have to work it," she said. "And I've been working it."
As for her thrust into fame at age 15 - "I'll be 16 in a week," she said- the singer is unafraid of exposure. "It's like I'm supposed to be there, I'm comfortable up there," Miss Yanofsky says, referring to the stage. "Some people fear the spotlight, but I don't. I embrace it."
Brad Wheeler, The Globe and Mail, February 4, 2010