Laila Biali already has beach walks planned.<\/p>\n
The multi-award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist and CBC Music national radio host hopes to squeeze them in \u2014 along with a little sun \u2014 before or after her Friday, Jan. 16 performance at the Carrollwood Cultural Center. Biali admits she hasn’t visited the Tampa area in years. But she\u2019s glad to be back for the beaches and warm weather and to perform songs from \u201cJoni Mitchell & The 70s Songwriters\u201d at the center.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s also fresh off her first Grammy nomination.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs they say, you could have knocked us over with a feather,\u201d Biali told the Beacon about the nomination. \u201cIt was a complete surprise. When we switched my album, \u2018Wintersongs,\u2019 from Alternative Jazz to Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, the others in that category are Lady Gaga, Elton John, Ben Folds, even Jeff Goldblum and the list went on and on and I thought there was no way I could break through. But on Nov. 7 when we found out, I was overjoyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to come back to Florida,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s been some years since I\u2019ve been to Tampa, but this mini tour, the anchor date was in Fort Myers, but expanded it to Carrollwood and Miami. So, I do hope to get some beach walks in (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n
Biali has headlined festivals and venues spanning five continents, from New York City\u2019s Carnegie Hall to Beijing\u2019s National Centre for the Performing Arts. She also has supported international icon Sting. In 2020, Laila was honored by SOCAN Music with the Hagood Hardy Award for Excellence in Songwriting.<\/p>\n
In 2019, Biali\u2019s eponymous release won her a Juno (Canada\u2019s Grammy) for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. The year prior, she won top prize at the Canadian Songwriting Competition in the Jazz category. She was also the youngest-ever double winner at Canada\u2019s National Jazz Awards, named both the SOCAN Composer of the Year and Keyboardist of the Year.<\/p>\n
She received her first Juno nomination for Tracing Light (2011) and earned spots on DownBeat Magazine\u2019s Best Albums of the Year for \u201cLive in Concert\u201d (2013) and \u201cOut of Dust\u201d (2020). In 2017, CBC Music brought her on as host of \u201cSaturday Night Jazz,\u201d a weekly national radio show broadcast across Canada.<\/p>\n
Her album \u201cOut of Dust\u201d featured multiple Grammy nominees and winners, including Lisa Fischer, Alan Ferber, John Ellis, and Larnell Lewis, and was also nominated for a Juno Award.<\/p>\n
At her Carrollwood show, Biali will work with local Tampa musicians Paul Gavin on drums and Brandon Robertson on bass.<\/p>\n
Being Canadian, she realizes she is actually well known in Florida thanks to snowbirds and former Canadian residents who settled here permanently.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have heard from a few people who are super excited to see me because they are, in fact, snowbirds,\u201d Biali said. \u201cAnd that really delighted me. Honestly, I have no idea what the audience (at Carrollwood Cultural Center) will be like. I know it will feature some people who have reached out directly to me, but other than that I\u2019m just very excited to be playing (in Carrollwood).\u201d<\/p>\n
This mini tour will occupy Biali\u2019s time until Feb. 1, when the Grammy Awards Ceremony will be held in Los Angeles. She\u2019ll walk the red carpet with her husband, fellow musician Ben Whitman, and her 15-year-old son.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a whole different scene I\u2019m learning all about, from parties and mixes and the different Grammy chapters all over the country,\u201d Biali added. \u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s been very exciting, and really, I\u2019m just happy to perform when I can before the Grammys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laila Biali already has beach walks planned. The multi-award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist and CBC Music national radio host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1408,19135,58732,58730,276,58731,58729,1407,56166,58733,58734,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-116354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-carrollwood","tag-carrollwood-cultural-center","tag-grammy-awards","tag-grammy-nominee","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-juno-awards","tag-laila-biali","tag-music","tag-music-industry","tag-popular-music","tag-sound-recording","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}