Jazz, blues, R&B, and gospel vocalist Dee Daniels sings of freedom and hope
With tour dates cancelled, the pandemic has led to two local concerts for the Vancouver-based artist—one with the VSO, one at the Shadbolt
In her upcoming performance with the VSO, Dee Daniels will premiere “The Ballad of John Lewis”, a song she wrote in tribute to the late US congressman and civil-rights leader.
For the Love of Song: Dee Daniels with the VSO streams on November 7 via TheConcertHall.ca. Dee Daniels performs in CELLARSTREAM at the ‘Bolt on November 8, a live concert that’s also livestreaming.
When Stir catches up with prolific singer-songwriter-pianist and dual citizen Dee Daniels at her Vancouver home the day after the U.S. election, she doesn’t mince words when it comes to her thoughts on the how things are unfolding south of the border.
“It’s awful,” says Daniels, who voted early. “It’s ridiculous. It’s incredible. It makes me so sad. It tears me up just to think of the state that the country has come to. It’s not just that country; it’s the world… How did we get here?
“But at the same time, when you look at the big picture, in order for real transformation to happen, this is necessary,” she says. “Evolution, revolution, transformation. From that point of view, I’m not sure how else it is going to change.”
What Daniels turns to for comfort and inspiration is music, just as she always has since discovering the transformative power of song as a child through her stepfather’s church choir in Oakland, California. With a four-octave vocal range, the Berkeley native is known for bridging the worlds of jazz, blues, gospel, and R&B. After teaching high school for a year straight out of university, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in art education, she pursued her passion for music. She lived and worked in Europe for a five-year period in the 1980s then moved to Vancouver in 1987. Daniels has since taught at respected institutions like the Aaron Copland School of Music out of New York’s Queens College, performed all over the world (including in 12 African nations), and shared stages with living and late musical legends such as Hassan Shakur, Benny Green, Wycliffe Gordon, and Toots Thielemans, among scores of others.
Daniels had ambitious plans for 2020, tour dates that COVID-19 obliterated. A silver living comes in the form of two upcoming local performances. For the Love of Song: Dee Daniels with the VSO streams on November 7 via TheConcertHall.ca, the online home of VSO’s virtual season. On November 8, she appears at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts as part of CELLARSTREAM at the ’Bolt, a new series that consists of intimate, physically distanced shows that are also being livestreamed.
Before the pandemic turned the world upside down, Daniels was set to spend this year mostly on the road, travelling across the U.S. with her Symphony Pops program Unforgettable: 100 Years of Nat and Natalie Cole. Working with vocalist Denzal Sinclaire, the two began touring the show in 2019; it proved so popular that this year’s calendar was booked solid. She was also teaching at the University of the Pacific in California.
“All that got cancelled,” Daniels says. “I had nothing—absolutely nothing.”
Daniels is quick to note she feels fortunate that her husband is still working. The time away from her work and travel allowed her to finally get through the home and garden to-do list she’s had forever. Once those projects were wrapped up, she began writing—an autobiographical-style book and new songs. She took time to reconnect with friends and family over the phone (not via text messages, as she likes to remind her 32-year-old daughter). The unexpected pause in her hectic scheduled allowed her to get to a good place mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
“To be home, to not have to be on the road, to do things around the house: I was just able to ground myself,” says Daniels, who has performed with dozens of big bands, including the Boston Pops, Rochester Philharmonic, and Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra. “It’s so easy to become ungrounded. You don’t even realize it because you’re doing so many things, multitasking. Being grounded is important to me; it always has been. Being grounded in the moment—that’s where the power is.”
Her foray into the world of pandemic-era online performances was for Calgary’s TD JazzYYC Virtual International Jazz Festival in May. She recorded two songs at home, sitting at her black Yamaha grand piano in her sunny south-facing living room with her mobile phone, a process that took about nine hours by the time she and her husband figured out lighting, sound, and background.
When Misha Aster, VSO vice president of artistic planning and production, contacted Daniels about a potential performance—which would be recorded live at the Orpheum with a medium-size ensemble and full COVID-19 protocols in place—she jumped at the chance.
She was enthused not only about being able to sing in a theatre alongside real people but also about the opportunity to premiere a song she just finished writing. “The Ballad of John Lewis” is an ode to the late US congressman and civil-rights leader. For the chorus, Daniels drew on five sentences from an opinion piece the respected statesman sent to the New York Times just two days before he died at age 80 in July. One of the lines from the essay, which was headlined “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation” read “Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.”
“Just those five sentences were so moving to me,” Daniels says. “I teared up. I was aware of his history, what he accomplished, and what he stood for. I so admired him and his contributions.
“I went to my piano, and it took me half an hour to come up with a melody that I could set these words to. The song just evolved and morphed.” Upon accepting the invitation from the VSO, Daniels had esteemed composer David Pierce (music director for the 2010 Olympics) orchestrate the piece for the ensemble of 25 musicians, consisting of VSO brass and strings plus a rhythm section (with jazz musicians and principal percussionist Vern Griffiths on drum kit). Andrew Crust, VSO associate conductor, leads.
With the VSO, Daniels will also perform beloved songs by the likes of Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington. They’re tunes she excels at, not merely due to her vocal skill and silkiness but also because of how she makes them swell with meaning.
“The sentiment of the songs is the most important thing for me,” she says. “Not separate from that is the melody and the musicality, but I don’t sing songs that I can’t make real to me. If I can’t make them real to me as far as my personal experience, observed experience, or imagination are concerned, there’s no way in the world I can make the experience, the storytelling part, real to the audience.
“When I have an opportunity to perform, my experience, my observed experience, and my imagination are unleashed to wrap around the story,” she says. “I make it mine and retell it.”
The Western Canadian Music Awards named Dee Daniels Spiritual Artist of the Year for 2020.
Daniels’s performance at the Shadbolt (in person and livestreaming) will be an entirely different program. She’ll perform music from her latest CD, The Promise, with her band (Miles Black on keyboards, Bill Coon on guitar, Miles Hill on bass, and Joel Fountain on drums). She wrote the album while undergoing treatment for breast cancer a few years ago, the 11 gospel-style songs coming to her during meditation.
“The music was just pouring out,” she says. “When I meditated, I had to have my phone next to me with my voice memo on to record things or I would forget. It was very profound at the time. I was on a journey; I was on a search. It was the most incredible experience I’ve ever been through through meditation.
“It’s my goal, my inspiration, my joyful obligation to share those stories with hopes of them being inspiring and uplifting to other people,” she says.
The CD has garnered her wins in three categories at the 2020 Global Music Awards, and she was named Spiritual Artist of the Year for the Western Canadian Music Awards.
As for what’s next, Daniels has a gig as a hand model for an upcoming movie (a first for the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame inductee) and she has plans to record a new CD just as soon as the border opens anew, with two of her musicians residing in the U.S. She accepts the fact that it’s uncertain when that may be, remaining firmly in the here and now.
“The creative juices are still flowing,” Daniels says. “There’s always something to do. We just have to figure out: where are going to live within our own selves?”
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