![\"Vancouver](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jg_stairs_closeup_-_large.jpg\")
<\/a>For Guillou, jazz music is about honesty and truth; the mood and feel of jazz is a big part of the music\u2019s appeal for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe underpinning mood of everything that you\u2019re doing is very unique for me; that\u2019s how I interpret the music and perform my own songs,\u201d she says. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s really heart-and-soul music that is more intellectual; it\u2019s more advanced than folk songs. The stimulation of rhythm is something to play around with, and it\u2019s really important to me, even as a singer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guillou says she is looking forward to coming to Victoria, not only to drink at \u201call the juice bars and cafes,\u201d but also because jazz festivals provide a different energy than a regular concert.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just this sense of liveliness and community to be able to express freely what you\u2019re doing,\u201d she says, \u201cso that\u2019s what I look forward to with JazzFest\u2014just the feeling and the buzz in the air that everybody\u2019s really excited to come together to appreciate jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although she is a solo artist, Guillou says that the process surrounding her most recent album has been very collaborative, and that will cross over into her Victoria show. She says jazz musicians are spread thin during festivals, so new collaboration becomes a necessity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show I\u2019m doing in Victoria actually uses different musicians all together, which is typical for jazz because it\u2019s a challenge to get them out, especially during JazzFest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guillou says it all comes down to being present when she performs, something her band members also need to be doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll give them the skeleton of the song or the outline of the song, and I want them to fill it in,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m drawing the map as we go along, but I want them to fill in beside me with colours and textures, and I think that\u2019s the best way to perform jazz, instead of dictating it too much and having everything written out on the page. It\u2019s a lot more my style to be inclusive of what other people want to say, because in the end, playing jazz\u2014playing music\u2014should be about having a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Guillou, how the lyrics intertwine with the composition is one of the most interesting parts of making jazz. Guillou says that she has as much to say as a writer of words as she does as a writer of music.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy music has been very inspired by poets like e.e. cummings and Joni Mitchell, who really is a poet and an artist, she claims, before being a songwriter. I have a lot to say as a lyricist and as a writer, as somebody who wants to say something about the world. And then there\u2019s the music part, so they actually have been two different things.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even though it\u2019s her name on the front of This Bitter Earth<\/i>, Guillou knows that it wouldn\u2019t be possible if she tried to do it all alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m just singing out there on my own, I\u2019m just on my own, so that\u2019s where being collaborative and having the right arrangers and the right musicians and the right producers [matters]. I\u2019m in a place now where I definitely know now more than ever that it\u2019s not a one-man show,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s essential for me to be working with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n