Album Notes

In 2001 Mother of Pearl began work on SheBOP! A Century of Jazz compositions by Canadian Women. The project’s aim was deceptively simple--find Canadian jazz written by women. The result was the better part of a year of intensive research by the group, their friends and total strangers across the country that got the bug. Archives, libraries, used record stores, dusty piles of decades-old sheet music, the minds of Canada’s most erudite jazz players, writers and collectors were all ransacked to find tunes. The results were often surprising.

Who wrote Frank Sinatra’s first big hit?
Who wrote the Hockey Night in Canada theme?
Who wrote the first Canadian song to sell a million copies?
Canadian women, that’s who!

Some of the composers who made the SheBOP! cut were household names (Joni Mitchell). Others were obscure when they lived and long forgotten (Hootin’ Lil Marcus). Others had regional followings (Vera Guilaroff-“Canada’s Melody Maid”). Some were never regarded as jazz composers (La Bolduc) until Mother of Pearl got hold of their work. Bringing it all together became a labour of love. SheBOP! is more than a CD—it is a celebration of the often unknown contribution women have made to jazz in Canada.

Another treasure contained on this CD? A performance by the legendary Eleanor Collins, who had her own TV show on CBC Television, and sings with all of the passion earned in her 80-some years of living life to the fullest.

Here's what they're saying about it...

**** (Wonderful) a warm and spirited CD . . . The ballads are sung with stylish charm and warmth, and the up-tempo numbers bounce along in mainly bopish arrangements.
Montreal Gazette

“A labour of love covering most of jazz’s bases, from swing, Latin and bebop through fusion and blues”
Kitchener-Waterloo Record

“SheBOP is illuminating and great fun”
Victoria Times-Colonist

“these players are really paying service to the composers and tunes in their original historical light, not for their subsequent pop-culture associations”
The Edmonton Journal