Stir Q&A: At DOXA, Baljit Sangra throws a spotlight on an undersung Canadian jazz songstress
In Have You Heard Judi Singh?, Vancouver director interweaves archival footage, re-created moments, and mesmerizing music in tribute to late Punjabi-Black artist
Have You Heard Judi Singh?
Judy Singh’s jazz classic A Time for Love.
DOXA presents Have You Heard Judi Singh? at the VIFF Centre on May 4 at 5 pm; at VPL Central Library on May 6 at 6 pm; and at SFU Woodward’s Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema on May 8 at 3 pm. Director Baljit Sangra joins DOXA’s Industry program on May 4
PUNJABI-BLACK EDMONTON jazz songstress Judi Singh broke new ground in the late 1950s, casting a spell on audiences with her smooth, ethereal voice.
She never got the full recognition she deserved—an all-too-familiar story for women and artists of colour. But now, in an artful new portrait debuting at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Singh’s daughter Emily Hughes and Vancouver director Baljit Sangra join forces to retrace the singer’s life and music. Sangra travels back to Edmonton’s legendary Yardbird Suite and other jazz haunts, blending archival recordings, interviews, and moody re-enactments to weave together Singh’s story.
Sangra begins in Singh’s childhood, when she grew up with a Sikh father and Black mother who immersed her in music—everything from classical Indian music to gospel, blues, and jazz. As a rising young singer, she met her partner in music and life, Canadian Music Hall of Fame jazz guitarist Lenny Breau; together, they moved to Toronto to try to make the big time, but the relationship fell apart because of his addiction issues and touring. Back in Edmonton, Singh recorded cult jazz classic A Time for Love with Tommy Banks in 1970, and sang and composed for Woody Shaw's Grammy-nominated 1978 album Rosewood. She died in 2021, after retiring to Victoria.
Singh’s sultry stage presence and velvety scatting come through easily in Have You Heard Judi Singh?. Even as a teen, she shows a musical maturity far beyond her years.
Stir asked Sangra—whose breakout 2019 documentary Because We Are Girls explored sexual abuse in one B.C. Punjabi family—about why she wanted to help Singh’s legend live on in a brighter spotlight.
Though it explores some difficult terrain, Have You Heard Judi Singh? feels, tonally, like a different world from Because We Are Girls. How did shooting it contrast with your NFB feature?
Because We Are Girls and Have You Heard Judi Singh? were very different experiences for me as a filmmaker, both in process and in tone. With Because We Are Girls, we followed the story of three sisters over three years, as they confronted the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. It was unfolding in real time, and part of the storytelling was going backwards—looking at the world they grew up in: life in a small town, the racism they faced, the influence of Bollywood on their ideas of gender and beauty. It was very immediate, raw, and evolving as we filmed.
With Have You Heard Judi Singh?, the approach had to be completely different. Judi had passed away before we began filming, so it became a story of rediscovery. Instead of events unfolding in front of us, we had to dig into the past—to reconstruct her life and legacy through archival recordings, intimate recollections, and the spaces she once inhabited. I was never able to meet Judi in person, so the storytelling came through the people who loved her, worked with her, and remembered her.
To keep Judi’s life present and to have her voice continue resonating throughout the film, we used re-enactments to capture her spirit in key moments. Music was also incredibly important—her songs carry so much of her story and emotion. They became the thread that stitched the film together, allowing Judi herself to guide the narrative in a way.
How did you first become familiar with the music of Judi Singh—and what struck you so much about that voice of hers?
I first came across Judi Singh when I stumbled upon an article titled “Why Has Edmonton Forgotten About Judi Singh?” The headline immediately caught my attention—I remember thinking “Why haven’t I heard of her before?” What struck me first was her last name—Singh—a very recognizable Sikh last name. Naturally, that piqued my curiosity even more, and I started looking her up.
From there, I went down a deep dive. I listened to her music and was immediately struck by her voice. It had such range, such incredible control over pitch and tone. There was a richness and warmth to her singing that really stayed with me. I was amazed by the variety in her work—moving effortlessly from bossa nova to jazz standards to the Great American Songbook. And then, when I discovered her scatting, it was like uncovering another layer of her artistry. It was clear to me right away that Judi Singh was a talent whose story needed to be better known.
How closely did you work with Emily Hughes to reconstruct the story, and how did her desires dovetail with your own aims for the project?
In real time, we were able to capture Emily physically unpacking boxes her mother had left for her—and at the same time, emotionally unpacking her relationship with Judi, her mother. That parallel—of sorting through both objects and memories—became an important thread in the story. It brought another dimension to the film, allowing us to explore Judi’s life and artistry in a more layered way.
You had a wealth of archival footage and recordings to work with. How did you aim to re-create that bohemian jazz world of her era?
We were lucky to uncover some real gems deep in the CBC archives—footage still on film from shows Judi had guested on—which felt like discovering pieces of a hidden history. Beyond that, we creatively blended period archives of the jazz scene and city life in the ’60s and ’70s to help evoke the world Judi inhabited. To keep her story feeling alive and vibrant, we also filmed re-enactments that flowed with her music and captured the spirit of those bohemian spaces she moved through. We wanted the archival material, the music, and the re-created moments to weave together, creating a textured, living portrait of a time and an artist who shouldn’t be forgotten.
In the end, why do you think so many of us have not “heard Judi Singh”?
I think so many of us haven’t heard of Judi Singh because, like so many women of colour, her contributions were overlooked in the larger cultural narrative. Stories like hers too often fall through the cracks—not because they aren’t significant, but because they weren’t given the platform or recognition they deserved at the time. As a filmmaker who shares some of her cultural background, I felt a deep pull toward her story. It felt important to acknowledge her place in Canada’s cultural history, to bring her back into the conversation where she always should have been. Telling Judi’s story was a way of reclaiming space—not just for her, but for the many artists like her whose voices shaped the landscape but were never fully seen or celebrated. 
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