A classically trained violinist who has become an in demand collaborator for folk, country and indie bands, a bona fide badass blues bandleader with a penchant for preserving and interpreting a bygone era of music, and an award-winning theatrical lighting designer who now uses her experience and expertise to teach the next generation her craft at her alma mater – Raha Javanfar could be said to be the epitome of the artistic overachiever – in a good way.
On top of all this, the Toronto resident she is hosting this year’s Toronto Blues Society Maple Blues Awards, which take place Monday, Feb. 3, at Koerner Hall in the Royal Conservatory of Music Building in downtown Toronto.
It is a gathering of the blues music community, all under one roof – a chance to renew friendships, celebrate the best of the art form and make connections with new friends, new artists and new music. In other words, for a blues music fan, it’s the epicentre of their universe and a rip roaring good time.
“I am not nervous about hosting at all. I love being on stage and I feel pretty comfortable amongst this group. And everybody’s there to have a good time, so I am not worried at all. I feel like it’s such a good community of people who are all friends and are there to get together and see each other and celebrate one another and have a good time,” said Javanfar who is the frontwoman/bassist for the powerhouse blues combo, Bad Luck Woman & Her Misfortunes, which released it’s second album, Cruel Thing, late last year.
“The blues community is such a close community and we kind of see each other all the time anyway, but usually in passing. This one event becomes a much larger version of all the smaller things that happen to be around. Year round there are mini versions of this happening all the time. They’re not awards shows per se, but they are jams or sitting in at people’s shows, festivals – so there is already constant connecting happening within this community. My favourite part of any awards show is the part where everybody is just so excited to see each other. It’s about the hang, it’s like a massive party. It’s usually so hard for us as artists to find the time necessarily throughout the year to go out to as many shows by other artists as we would like to in order to support them. Often, you’re playing the same night, or you’re on the other side of the country.
“This is one chance where pretty much everyone can be in the same room and you can just feel the connections and closeness and the support and the love and the positivity that runs through our community. Which is kind of ironic because it’s an awards show where people are trying to win over other people, and yet that’s not the part that really feels like it stands out. It’s that everyone is there to support one another and celebrate one another regardless of who the winners are typically. And not only do you get to hang out with people you know but its getting to meet people you haven’t come across yet. The Maple Blues Awards is a great platform for new people to be featured. For Back Luck Woman, we were the lobby band there three years ago and it was an amazing because everybody’s there and they get to hear you, and at the time we were just starting out. It’s a great place to play for your peers and people who are in the industry.”
As the host of the Maple Blues Awards, Javanfar has her own performance slot on the show, and has decided to share the spotlight with a quartet of gifted young horn and woodwind players from the Regent Park School of Music, giving them a chance to shine in front of a room packed full of music lovers.
“I am going to be performing the title track from our last album. Cruel Thing and I thought it would be a good opportunity to share that spot. I have done some work at the Regent Park School of Music in the past, just volunteering with the students to prepare them for certain performances and whatnot, and I just thought it would be great to bring some very young blood into that event and give them a chance to experience something cool. I am really looking forward to working with them and bringing them up on stage with me,” said Javanfar.
The challenge of being an in-demand bandleader with a new album out, is compounded by the fact that on top of trying to tackle all the administration and PR that goes along with that, as well as booking, rehearsing and playing shows, Javanfar has a whole other part of her creative life going on at the same time.
Her credits as a lighting designer include top shows at the Soulpepper Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Festival Players of Prince Edward County, and Ballet Jorgen Canada, among others. Javanfar’s respect and renown within the Canadian theatrical community has seen her serve on juries for the Dora Awards, FACTOR and the OAC’s Pauline McGibbon Award. She herself is co-recipient of the Siminovitch Protégé Awards, is an active ambassador for Music Canada and teaches lighting design at Ryerson University, where she herself learned her trade.
Growing up in a home where her father was a conductor and violinist, there was really no chance that Javanfar wasn’t going to be inculcated into the world of classical music at a young age – three years old in fact. After focusing on her craft as a violinist for a number of years, her overactive creative impulses led her to pursue another somewhat less contiguous artist path – the theatre.
“Throughout my entire childhood I was a very dedicated and disciplined classical violinist and took part in all the activities that went along with that like playing in orchestras and competitions, recitals and that kind of stuff. But with something like classical music it can feel really isolating at times because you spend so much time alone practicing. It isn’t the same as playing in a rock band where there is a social element to it. So, the social part of me, in high school, was really drawn to the theatre because you really can’t do theatre alone at home. It’s always dependent on a group project,” she explained.
“It was like a magnet pulling me in. And for various reasons I decided to pursue my post secondary education in theatre. I wasn’t really into acting, so the choices were either you go into acting or you go into production and all the backstage stuff. I was really interested in creating theatre, I wanted to be a director and make up my own stuff and I thought by learning about all the production aspects, that could really strengthen my skills to do that.
“When I went to Ryerson, I feel in love with lighting design. I thought it was so cool because you can create visual beauty without having to do a lot of painting and building, which I was never very good at. But I was always good at programming and computer stuff and lighting design is really cool that way.”
So, it seems as though music had taken a backseat in Javanfar’s life as she goes through her 20s, focusing on this new passion for theatrical lighting design. But hold your proverbial horses, as music again comes boldly back into her life in a life-transforming way.
“Through the whole time I was focused on pursuing my career in theatre, there was always this little voice inside me talking about music. It was like this big hole was still there and the only way to fill that was to go back to music. Around that time, I was lucky to discover roots music. I started playing in a rock band first and a through that I found myself at The Cameron House where I discovered country music and folk music and all these other genres that fall under that roots umbrella. Very slowly, I started learning those different styles and taking that very terrifying leap as a classical player, into the world of improvisation and playing licks, which was a big of a learning curve,” Javanfar said.
“I played fiddle in a western swing band, The Double Cuts, and I started doing a bunch of country music and then fell head over heels for the blues. It was around the time of my 30th birthday, and I wanted to do something new, I wanted to excite myself with something, with my own project. I hadn’t really been the frontperson of a band and there was always a part of me that wanted to sing, and I was always a little shy about singing, as I hadn’t quite found my singing voice and what kind of music fit that voice. But it was the type of music we’re doing now, that 1950s and early 1960s blues, R&B and rock and roll that made me realize that my voice can fit that style well. My voice seemed to suit that music, so it gave me an outlet to front my own band, and that became Bad Luck Woman & Her Misfortunes.
“The name came from the first song I ever learned for that band, which was Memphis Minnie’s Bad Luck Woman, and it just sort of came to me one night that this was kind of a witty, fun name. But it was also intended to be a little bit of an homage to Memphis Minnie and the whole genre that she represented. Although the repertoire has grown, when we first started, most of the songs I was doing were from the late 1940s and 1950s. In general, I am mostly attracted to the female performers of those eras and the songs they were doing, and not just big names like Etta James, although we do her music. I wanted to do songs by artists like Little Sylvia, Big Maybelle, Ruth Brown, Ella Johnson and Memphis Minnie. I think it’s nice to play songs, and as an audience hear songs, that you don’t hear all the time and in a style you don’t hear all the time.”
For a while, music again became a primary focus, to the point where Javanfar was even telling her pals that she had ‘retired’ from lighting design. But, much as music bull rushed its way back into her life a decade prior, lighting design too came a-calling.
“It wasn’t money that brought me back, it was the fact tat I really, truly missed it. It’s a skill set that I worked hard to develop, I have been successful doing it and it was creatively fulfilling. It brings me together with a different scene and a community which is unique, because I really like not being stuck in the same place in society all the time. I missed it and I really wanted to do it again and so I reached out to a few people and said, ‘I know I said I retired but I want back in,’” she said.
“Still, it was a hard decision to make because you can’t focus on one thing when you’re doing lots of things. If I am committed for a month or two to lighting a theatre show, I can’t really do anything else during that period of time, which pulled me away from focusing on my band and my music and promoting my album. That said, it gives me an opportunity to work on projects that help expand my mind and creative endeavours. It gives me a chance to connect with people I wouldn’t necessarily connect with if I just stayed in the music scene all the time.
“It seems like it’s creative diversity that really fuels me and what I have grown accustomed to. I find if I do something a little too long, I get a little bit restless – it’s like having creative ADD or something like that. I like it that way.”
For more information on Raha Javanfar, visit https://www.badluckwoman.com, or https://www.rahajavanfar.com.
For more information on the Maple Blues Awards, visit www.torontobluessociety.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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