Singer-songwriter Emm Gryner is shown in this handout photo by Cynthia Moore. Gryner, who grew up near Sarnia, is recording a jazz album inspired by her father’s love of the music. Handout
Deciding it was the right time to make a jazz album helped Emm Gryner out of a Father’s Day gift-buying rut.
“I just got tired of giving my dad a tin of Tim Hortons ground coffee,” said the singer-songwriter who grew up near Sarnia and travelled the world making music before returning to southwestern Ontario.
Just For You, her upcoming album, is about more than avoiding a trip to the drive-thru, of course.
The collection of jazz standards selected by her father, along with two of her own songs, is set to be released in the fall. He also named the album.
“What I wanted to do was to just honour the music he grew up with, and he tried to educate me and my brothers about,” Gryner said.
It follows nearly 20 albums Gryner has recorded during a career she said her “incredibly, incredibly supportive” fans have followed, even when it has taken unconventional turns.
“I’ve sort of done whatever I’ve wanted to do for 20 years, so I don’t think they’re surprised when I take a tangent like this,” she said.
“I think if I said I wanted to make a yodelling album, they would get on board with it.”
Gryner started out releasing her own music after graduating from Fanshawe College’s recording arts program more than two decades ago and then signed a deal with Mercury Records that led to the 1998 album Public, before she was dropped during a label merger.
But, what might have looked like a failure, turned out not to be.
“It just gave me license to follow whatever whim I wanted to follow,” Gryner said.
She returned to recording music on her own and, a few years later, an album of hair metal covers recorded as piano ballads earned Gryner one of her three Juno nominations.
“Once things like that happen, that you don’t expect, you just feel like it’s a sign from the universe,” she said.
Two years ago, she gave her dad a card on Father’s Day with the promise to record an album of the jazz music he loves, and would try to get Gryner and her brothers to appreciate while they were growing up near Camlachie listening to Top 40 and rock.
“When dad would say, ‘Come into my den and listen to this jazz pianist,’ we sure didn’t appreciate it, at the time,” she said.
Her brother, Frank, became a recording engineer and producer, and Gryner made pop music, with some side trips, including one into folk music with the trio Trent Severn.
She said she became interested in jazz after being cast in the 2013 musical Joni Mitchell: River at London’s Grand Theatre.
Jazz guitarist Greg Lowe was also part of the show and Gryner invited him to play on her album, Day of Games. Lowe was battling cancer and died before that album was finished.
Gryner later got to know Lowe’s peers in the Winnipeg jazz community, including guitarist Larry Roy who organized sessions and made charts for the new recording.
“We recorded a little bit in Winnipeg and the environment was so warm and comfortable and creative,” Gryner said.
Inspired to take a less-is-more approach with arrangements on the album, Gryner said, “It’s basically just going to be probably the most relaxing thing you’ve ever heard.”
Because she wants to also release it on vinyl, and have the album mixed by L.A.-based producer Joe Corcoran, Gryner said she knew the project would need some financial help. So, she turned to her fans.
Gryner has crowd-sourced successfully before and set up a campaign on Kickstarter.com with the goal of raising $25,000 in pledges.
It’s her first project using Kickstarter, which is “like an all-or-nothing thing,” she said.
If the campaign doesn’t reach its goal by Easter, the pledges won’t be collected and passed along to Gryner for the album project.
On the positive side, that adds some suspense for fans following the campaign, she said.
Pledges hit 34 per cent of the goal by the weekend, with a month still to go.
Gryner said everyone she has worked with on the new album has been supportive and encouraging, but she added singing jazz is something new.
“I can jump around and sing We Built This City by Starship,” she said. “I can do that in my sleep, in Spandex, but when it comes to just the subtlety of jazz – I wanted to do it right.”
pmorden@postmedia.com