Kellylee Evans

Kellylee Evans stumbled into jazz by chance. While enrolled in law and English at Ottawa’s Carleton University, she lost her way on campus and wandered into the music department, where the sounds immediately captivated her. A vocalist blending jazz with mature retro-R&B, she gained significant momentum in 2004 by placing second at the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition, whose judges included Quincy Jones, Flora Purim, and Al Jarreau. Her independent debut, Fight or Flight, arrived in 2006, earned a Juno Award nomination, and was followed the next year by a live edition. Two further releases appeared in 2010: Nina, a stripped-down homage to Nina Simone, and The Good Girl; the former claimed the Juno Award for Best Vocal Jazz Album.

Her fourth studio album, I Remember When, came out in 2013 via Universal France and included renditions of John Legend’s “Ordinary People” and Kanye West’s “Amazing,” plus the original “My Name Is,” shaped by Eminem and classic soul. Shortly after the album’s launch, lightning struck Evans while she washed dishes at her Ottawa residence. For the ensuing two years she endured a difficult recuperation marked by persistent headaches and heart palpitations.

Sufficiently recovered, she issued the romantic, classic soul-inflected album Come On in 2015. A later fall and resulting head trauma, traced to aftereffects of the lightning strike, forced the cancellation of a tour and required additional healing time. In the aftermath, fellow performer Amanda Martinez organized a crowdfunding effort that ultimately collected more than $43,000 toward Evans’ living costs. By 2017 she had regained enough strength to resume performing, delivering the Canadian National Anthem at the Juno Cup hockey game and accepting an artist-in-residence role at her alma mater, Carleton University.