Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Canadian jazz has come a long way from the day that Oscar Peterson made his auspicious debut at New York's Carnegie Hall. The young Montreal pianist, sharing a bill with Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, "stopped the concert dead cold in its tracks," according to down beat magazine, displaying "a flashy right hand, a load of bop and a good sense of harmonic development." Peterson soared to fame virtually overnight, followed a short time later by Montreal trumpeter Maynard Ferguson. For the longest while, they were the only jazz stars from Canada. And, with a distinct lack of domestic gigs, they worked almost exclusively in the United States. Joining Peterson an...

She’s billed as a Canadian jazz sensation. But Cole, a gifted singer and two-time Juno Award winner, has never belonged to any one category. That’s because the Halifax native has always been too adventurous. Her first hit was a version of Johnny Nash’s reggae classic “I Can See Clearly Now” and she’s since covered everyone from the Beatles to, most frequently, Tom Waits. Blessed with playful personality, Cole has consistently taken her versatile contralto to unexpected places. That’s true of her ninth album—and first in five years. Although the material is drawn entirely from the American Songbook, there’s nothing conventional about Cole’s approach. Backed stellar musicians, including her lo...

Cole has won fans the world over with her jazz-tinged takes on pop hits. Here she delivers a dreamy, piano-laced rendition of Gordon Lightfoot’s classic “If You Could Read My Mind.” But most surprising are her seductive covers of Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” and the James Bond theme “You Only Live Twice.”