Laura Anglade, a French-American jazz chanteuse, is enjoying her last days in her Toronto apartment. She has been in Canada for the past decade. Now, on to New York City!
We ask: what awaits her in New York?
“Well … I don’t know,” says the 28-year-old vocalist. “Which is part of the reason I’m going. I have a lot of growing to do. I want to feel challenged. I want to be humbled and kicked around a bit.”
It’s easy to become complacent, staying in one place, she says. “It’s going to be really inspiring in New York. I think my soul just needs to be there right now.”
Born in Brousse-le-Château, in the south of France, and raised in Connecticut, Anglade moved to Montreal when she was 18. She studied translation at Concordia University.
“I grew up speaking French, I was born in France. I missed that French side of me that I didn’t get to connect with too much,” she says. “I thought it would be neat to go somewhere where everyone’s bilingual.”
At the time, music was not the plan.
“I’ve always loved singing,” she says, “I grew up playing classical piano. I loved music but I didn’t want to pursue it at that time. I thought, ‘it’s okay, I’ll just keep it as a hobby.’”
She graduated in 2018 and began work with a translation company. She swiftly realized that an office-based translation job was not what she wanted.
“It was not for me, the 9-5,” she says. “I made the decision to quit and then I did my first album in 2019.”
Now, she has toured internationally. Her second album, Venez Donc Chez Moi, was nominated for a JUNO. And her third album comes out next spring. Get Out of Town features an impressive line-up of in-demand jazz artists, including Ben Paterson, Peter Bernstein and Neil Miner.
Recording it was a bit of an adventure. The American portion of her band was held up by flight issues and so some songs were, at the last minute, recorded as a trio instead of a quintet. However, some of them ended up being her favourite tunes on the record, she says. “I like it when things are unexpected like that. I don’t like it when things are too calculated. I think it ruins the magic.”
It’s part of why she’s shaking up everything in her life right now.
“I’m in an in-between phase right now,” Anglade says. “My album’s not coming out until next year, I’m just about to move. I feel like I’m at a crossroads in every part of my life right now. It’s going to be interesting to look back on this time.”
Laura Anglade and her Canadian band are performing at the Medicine Hat Jazz Fest, June 26, and at the TD Summer Jazz Festival in Calgary on June 27.
Details and tickets can be found here.
“If Ever I Would Leave You” by the Laura Anglade Quintet:
