With seven releases to her name. Canadian jazz and pop singer Coco Love Alcorn continues to be a force to be reckoned with. Alcorn’s latest release, the aptly titled Play, has been warmly received right across the country. It was nominated for a pair of East Coast Music Awards a couple of years back.
The daughter of a jazz singer who divided her time between her mother’s residence in Vancouver and her father’s home in Toronto, Alcorn was exposed to a variety of music at an early age. While her father exposed her to jazz and soul music, her mother leaned more towards the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s including Jackson Browne and James Taylor. This explains why Alcorn draws from both of these musical worlds when it comes to her solo work.
Alcorn’s friendship with Ian Sherwood, with whom she is performing this evening at the Riverview Arts Centre, started when the two musicians were set up on what she calls a musical “blind date,” meaning they were scheduled to play together despite not having previously met.
“I think that we were both very curious about each other and our music right away,” she says. “Both of our backgrounds were similar in that we were both troubadour singer-songwriters with acoustic guitars that had jazz as a part of our musical background. I think that we both really enjoy the improvisational aspects of jazz along with the story-telling aspect of being a singer-songwriter.”
Alcorn’s professional relationship with Sherwood has been a fruitful one, having made a joint EP together with plans for a full-length album on the horizon for some time next year.
In the more immediate future for Alcorn are some non-musical plans including running a half-marathon and simply enjoy living life in Owen Sound, Ont. where she, her daughter and husband moved a year ago.
“Real life is going really well for me right now,” she happily notes. “Time with family is so important. I am starting to ease back into traveling and playing more while not trying to disrupt my daughter’s world too much.
“I am a frequent visitor to Atlantic Canada though. I think I performed in Nova Scotia six different times in the nine months that I was pregnant. I haven’t been getting to British Columbia as much as I would like to have though. Having roots on both coasts is something I am really looking to have.”
Article published in the November 9, 2012 edition of the Times & Transcript