International Women’s Day

What did you do this International Women’s Day? For Blast Toronto, it is a day to celebrate women in music. I went to The Pilot this past Sunday for an afternoon of feminine storytelling and Denielle Bassels is a woman with some great stories. Last month she pulled her back and had to take some time to recover. Well, I came back after a month to finally see her and believe me she is worth the wait.

The Songbird Series

Ori Dagan is a strong supporter and helps organize these shows. Here is a statement and a call to arms for all of us to go discover new and exciting live music again.

JazzInToronto has been presenting The Songbird Series every week since the spring of 2024. It’s truly inspiring to see the range of talent and diversity that our city has to offer. We love our new home of The Pilot, offering excellent sound and sightlines, fabulous menu and friendly vibes. The series has been extended throughout 2026!

There are two ways to enjoy The Songbird Series: the first one is by coming out to support an artist you already know, cheering them on in an intimate environment while enjoying The Pilot’s food, drink and atmosphere. The second way is to use this series as a springboard to discover local talent, and potentially becoming a new fan of an artist, you may not be aware of yet. Either way, we really appreciate all of the support of the community coming out to enjoy living musicians instead of artificial intelligence.

Denielle Bassells

Denielle has an interesting twist here in the musical community. She is well embraced in the Jazz scene and is opening up the Toronto scene with her unique sound. It is a form of French Cabaret and right now, she is the only one in Toronto with such a sound. If I am wrong, and there are other with this style contact me.

Her first story was about going to France but receiving what she calls a hazing when she began to perform. It seems that the French will test you before they begin to accept you. The band was speeding up the songs so Denielle would have to sing at a higher and faster register. She ended up singing like Mickey Mouse during those shows.

Well, this day she didn’t have to worry because she brought two very loyal friends to play with. We had Jay Yoo on guitar and Henry Heillig on Bass.

The set list was very laid back as she played her original stuff from her 3 albums, ( one of them was nominated for a Juno).

She also dug deep to find inspirations from other female artists. I was about to yell out play Nina Simone, when she decided it was time to honour Nina Simone. This was a very fine idea.

As the afternoon was rolling along, I noticed this woman seem to be searching for love but hasn’t been lucky just yet. Her songs reflected having unfit partners in her life. Well, it does make for some terrific songs, like “Gone” and “Chasing Butterflies”. This song came from a broken heart on a train ride.

What do you do with that? Well, you call up your close friend and do a duet called “Songbird”. It is a powerful song about loss and pain, but when your friend comes up to gives you a great big hug for support and sings back-up; this is going to be a strong moment.

The friend’s name is Maureen Honore and she sings back up for Denielle and Denielle sings back-up for her. They stuck together and had the audience smiling as they sang a fun song called, “Gunna be Hell”. It is a story of Denielle dodging a bullet and saying no to the man who just proposed to. If she were to marry him, you know where this was going…

She finally had to say goodbye and left us with some, “Strange Love”.

The Songbird series is an ongoing series that happens every Sunday at the Pilot from 2-4.

Here is the link so you can grab your tickets for up and coming shows there.

JazzInToronto by The Pilot | Eventbrite

Here is Denielle and her band: