Blond Ambition

It’s a sold-out night at the Blue Note jazz club in Tokyo, and the crowd is whooping and hollering – a far cry from the decorous applause typical of Japanese audiences. Clearly, the tiny 26-year-old blonde standing onstage has struck a chord in what’s become her home away from home. After a “Hellooo, Tokyo!” that could put Spinal Tap to shame, Sophie Milman launches into her polished interpretation of “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green,” a ballad originally sung by Kermit the Frog. When she introduces the song, about accepting who you are, many of her fans look puzzled, not entirely sure who Kermit is or why he’s green to begin with. But Milman makes it universal. “I was the nerdy little kid with thick glasses, the leader of the tutoring club in high school,” she tells them. “I was an outsider.” Then she starts to sing. There’s an authentically sad undercurrent in her delivery, an intensity in tone that makes it clear she’s connecting with the lyrics.

Later in the set, before her band starts to play Oscar Peterson’s signature tunes “Tenderly” and “Sweet Georgia Brown,” Milman announces, “When Oscar Peterson died, it left a huge gap in Canadian culture.” The crowd goes wild at the mention of the jazz giant who, through decades of touring in Japan, became one of that country’s most revered foreign artists. Now, thanks to Milman’s softly smoky lower range – in full swing on her just-released album, Take Love Easy – Japan is in the process of adopting her in a similar way.

As Asia's cultural trendsetter, Japan has an insatiable appetite for foreign music and boasts a $5.2-billion music market that’s second only to that of the United States. Which explains why the Canadian government and its embassy in Tokyo have for years helped Canadian artists. Everyone from Alanis Morissette and Broken Social Scene to Diana Krall and Holly Cole has built a successful career here, with support from touring grants, showcase concerts and cultural exchange initiatives.

I’m chatting with Sebastian Mair, a cultural officer with the embassy, in his cramped office, filled to the rafters with CDs, posters and music industry reports. “We’re here to make sure Canadian artists are branded as such, to make people aware that Avril Lavigne, who’s the biggest-selling artist in Japan, and Daniel Powter, who sold more than a million CDs last year, are Canadian,” he says. “It’s like a waterfall effect that can help burnish Canada’s image in Japan, boost tourism and attract foreign students planning to study abroad.” More than box office receipts or licensing fees, artists are what reinforce the impression of a country’s creativity, which, in turn, benefits other industries.

Milman’s team – manager Nikki Shibou and agent Richard Mills, from S.L. Feldman & Associates, Canada’s largest booking agency – has made the most of its alliance with the embassy in Tokyo. “We’ve successfully developed Sophie’s story in Japan,” Mills says, sitting with me in a sushi restaurant near Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. “We’re developing her story in the U.S., and now we’re going into the next phase, which is slowly growing Europe, so we have a foundation for a career that will go on for years.”

It helps that Milman's story is a good one. She grew up in the shadow of Russia’s Ural Mountains before her family moved to Israel when she was seven (to escape anti-Semitism) and then to Toronto when she was 16 (to escape political instability). As a “shy, neurotic little kid” in an Israeli children’s music troupe, she’d get so unnerved onstage that she gave up performing. It wasn’t until she landed in Toronto in 1999 that she got back into singing, encouraged by a high school music teacher. “I was a misfit immigrant kid,” she tells me over coffee in the Hotel Okura. “If you’d asked me back then, I would have said a career in music was not for me. Maybe because of my childhood, I tend to hope for the best but expect the worst. In Canada, I had expectations of leading a very pragmatic life.”

Instead, she signed a contract with prominent Canadian record label Linus Entertainment, which released her self-titled debut CD in 2004, followed by the Juno Award-winning album Make Someone Happy three years later. Meanwhile, she studied commerce at the University of Toronto – “After my first record came out, I got into the habit of reading the financial reports on my record sales every morning,” she tells me – and performed in Canada and abroad. “I’d say it was an immigrant’s drive that made me so hypercompetitive.”

The international touring has refined Milman’s craft. “It was immediately obvious on the first day of rehearsal for the latest album. Her vocal choices in terms of improv and phrasing are confident and original,” says Steven MacKinnon, the producer on Make Someone Happy and Take Love Easy.” Indeed, Milman exudes self-assurance. “I’m a better singer, experimenting with feel and taking up my vocals a notch,” she says. “So when my producer said, ‘Why don’t you scat?’ I did. That’s new.” But she’s also shaken up her repertoire of jazz standards with pop and rock tunes by Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and others. “I’m curious to find out how people will like the mix,” says Milman. Her Japanese fans will decide firsthand, when she takes to the stage at the Blue Note again this summer. 

WIN HER NEW CD!

Enter our contest for a chance to win a copy of Sophie Milman's new album, Take Love Easy. Email us at contests@enroutemag.net and be sure to include your full name, mailing address and the answer to this question:

What is the name of Sophie Milman's first album?

Photographer: Jason Wills; Styling: Maeve Mckee; Hair and Make-up: Jordana Maxwell for Judy Inc.; Clothes: silk blouse by par Ted Baker, tedbaker.com; gold earrings by Biko Designs, bikodesigns.ca.

Music & Lyrics by Paul Shrofel and Sharada Banman. Published by Scapenote Music (SOCAN).