"It's the very thought of you" for jazz original Emilie-Claire Barlow

From ballads and bossa nova – the Toronto singer's sixth CD – The Very Thought of You – is shaped in the image of the artist herself, who opted for arrangements distinguished by their originality.

"I chose songs that I've loved since childhood (The Boy Next Door), having heard them from my mother the singer, who sang them at home, or songs that I can't get out of my head (What a Little Moonlight Can Do), to which I wanted to bring my personal touch," says the frequently-nominated Juno Awards singer.

"There have been so many who have sung so much from the American Songbook that it takes a lot of time for jazz interpreters to find their own style in the genre without mimicking that of others. "These days, I'm not just concentrating on singing the notes well, I'm paying more and more attention to the lyrics I'm voicing," says Barlow, who's traveled many roads since issuing her first album, Sings, in 1998.

New songs are also on tap for the concert, numbers from a new CD to be released March 10. Suitably titled Haven't We Met, the album will include three French songs. Also in French, she'll sing, from The Very Thought of You, C'est Si Bon, on a suggestion from her mother, and Les Yeux Ouverts (French version of Dream a Little Dream of Me) which she prefers to the original. "I think it's even more romantic in French. It suits me perfectly well."