Two fixtures of Toronto jazz scene take artistic departures with new albums

One experienced “Imposter Syndrome,” while the other is expressing pure “Joy.”

Two fixtures of the talented Toronto jazz scene — singer Barbra Lica and drummer Ernesto Cervini — released albums Friday that represent artistic departures from what they’ve previously offered their audiences — and both are thrilled with the results.

Lica’s “Imposter Syndrome” is a seven-song EP that comes on the heels of the pandemic shutdown when the local songbird/composer/producer, like many, took the time off to reflect and make significant life changes that even surprised herself.

“It’s called ‘Imposter Syndrome’ because of the past few years, when everything kind of stopped,” she explained recently over the phone. “Everything was cancelled and I had a lot of time to try and figure stuff out and get a sense of identity.

“A lot of things I didn’t take seriously before, I started to try and think about more. Like, I ended up getting married, which was something I never thought I would do because I’ve always been supercynical and not into that mushy, gushy stuff.

“I said to him, ‘Let’s just do it. This could be cool.’”

She also gave birth to her first child … prompting even more introspection.

“I’d always felt weird about being a musician in the first place because I’m such a nerd: I love paperwork. I’m at my desk writing grants and reports with detailed budgets a lot. I never really felt like I was cool enough to be a musician, but I never felt I could do anything else, either, so it’s been one big identity crisis over several years. The album goes back and forth between saying, ‘I’m too nerdy. I’m too this … I’m too that … I want to just let go of preconceived notions and do whatever I want to do.’ It’s one big conversation with myself.”

While the song “Girls Like Me” deals exactly with that situation, with Lica’s fluttering alto musing on the thrills of filling out an Excel spreadsheet, the album flits between different styles that encompass everything from pop to folk … and maybe a hint of jazz.

Lica (pronounced Lee-Kah) admits she may be moving away from the category.

“I just don’t feel like I’ve been doing jazz physically for a long time,” she admitted. “I think I used jazz as kind of a musical lexicon. I sometimes can maybe have more harmonic complexity than you might have in a lot of pop, but even that’s not necessarily true. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to contemporary pop music and it’s pretty complex these days.

“So, I just have been playing with every genre — there’s a little bit of R&B, there’s a little bit of indie pop vibe; there’s definitely a couple of tunes that have a little bit of jazz in there like ‘Take Care of You’ and then I did this straight up Randy Newman thing with ‘Sour Women’”

As for the nerd aspect of her life, that dates back to the days when she juggled studying music with medicine and floated the possibility of becoming Dr. Barbra Lica.

“When I was at U of T, I studied music and human bio because I wanted to be a doctor,” she recalled. “My parents are both musicians, so going to music was kind of like a family biz, and studying medicine was sort of a way to rebel.

“I really, really loved studying it and I was taking it pretty seriously. I thought I’d go that way — but right when I graduated, music was already kind of taking off and I was enjoying it. So I kind of made the choice to music and I think I picked it on my graduation day ceremony.

“I remember being asked, ‘what’s it going to be?’ I had this double major in music and in order to study medicine, I had to get a third major in music. So I was always doing classes like all summer, all night. Like, I would go right from my jazz combo to my 9 p.m. chemistry lab. And it was so nuts. And at the end, it was technically a Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Biology.”

Lica applied to the Canada Council of the Arts just when pandemic restrictions set in and created her own chamber orchestra project.

“I spent most of the pandemic either working on these songs, remotely with producers, or writing scores for the orchestra,” she explained. “So, I ended up writing 16 scores for 16 people and we got to pay ourselves to do it — me and my arranging partner.

“I got to take tunes from the beginning of my career until now that I wished had been bigger, and make them big. We debuted this in April 2022 at the Flato (Markham Theatre) and then went on a little minitour of Ontario this summer. Our last subsidized run of it is in Kitchener on Nov. 18 at the Registry.”

While Lica explored the world of chamber pop and jazz, Ernesto Cervini took a more novel approach to his work, literally.

Cervini, best known for the 13 assorted albums he’s released with Myriad3 and Turboprop, has based his 15-track album “Joy” on the novels of former CBC broadcaster turned Canadian mystery author Louise Penny.

“It’s basically about the whole series of novels that she’s written,” said Cervini by phone last week. “They all take place in the same small town — Three Pines — or most of them, and I was really inspired by these books.

“Although they’re detective novels, they’re really about human decency and love and joy and community and — they really resonated with me.”

He said he was particularly inspired by the Penny novel “Beautiful Mystery.”

“It takes place in a Quebec abbey. There’s a murder, but then the book ended up focusing on music — on these Gregorian chants that these monks are singing — and I started hearing all these songs they were singing within my own head.

“I thought it would be really beautiful to try and recreate this, and then it snowballed: maybe I could write a bunch of music based on all these different characters and situations or places or themes that come up in the book.”

The album is based on the modern jazz, post-bop idiom that Cervini has perfected and some of the musicians joining him on the project include trumpeter Jim Lewis, clarinettist Virginia MacDonald, saxophonists Tara Davidson, Luis Deniz and Kelly Jefferson, trombonist William Carn, pianist Adrean Farrugia, guitarist Don Scott, acoustic bass players Dan Fortin and Artie Roth and electric bass player Rich Brown.

And for the very first time in his career, Cervini is incorporating vocalists, including Alex Samaras on “The Beautiful Mystery” track and the trio of Felicity Williams, Emilie-Claire Barlow and sister Amy Cervini on the wordless intro track “Three Pines.”

“It was really fun,” said Cervini. “There are so many wonderful singers. I think I’ve known Alex for longer than 15 years — he’s just one of my favourite musicians in the world — so, when I wrote ‘The Beautiful Mystery,’ which kind of mimics these singing monks, I wrote it for him.

“The first song, with Felicity, Emilie-Claire and my sister was Amy’s idea.

“Because it’s Three Pines, the name of the town where this takes place, I wanted to make it special. I was hearing guitar, but Amy said, ‘how about some voices?’ I think that’s my favourite track on the album, and it is a departure for me, but it was so much fun.”

So has author Penny heard the album and given her stamp of approval?

“I did reach out to her right before I started anything,” Cervini said. “I’m a huge fan and I have a lot of respect and admiration for her and what she’s created, so I wanted to reach out right away and make sure I wasn’t doing something that wouldn’t be OK.

“She was very receptive and very sweet and she sent me a very lovely email back. I did send her a final copy of the CD and I haven’t heard back from her, but I also sent her the masters a while ago and she listened to some of it. She said she loved it and was really thrilled with the title of the album ‘Joy.’ She’s been very supportive, which means the world to me.”

The Juno Award-winning Cervini, who also holds Royal Conservatory of Music Masters degrees in classical clarinet and piano performance, will perform “Joy” at the Alliance Française on Spadina Avenue on Nov. 2 with a seven-piece band followed by shows in Montreal and Ottawa before returning to playing with a host of other interests including a Rex Hotel gig with Tevet Sela and cross-Canada Turboprop tour.

“Joy” is available for purchase at ernestocervini.bandcamp.com while Barbra Lica’s “Imposter Syndrome” can be found at bfan.link/imposter-syndrome-1.

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