Lucy Lambert is a New York/ New Orleans based jazz accordionist, pianist, artist, violinist, singer and producer hailing from Vancouver/Montreal, Canada. She is the bandleader and creative director of her jazz quintet, "Lucy Lambert's Violet Drift's" albums and music videos. Her jazz band features a rotating cast of some of Canada's top jazz musicians, such as John Nicholson, Seb Chamney, Noah Gotfrit, Kevin Romain, Juliette Malgrange and Joe Abbott, and they have recently released two singles, "Caravan" and "In a Sentimental Mood", from their second jazz album which are available now on her bandcamp, and out on all platforms on Dec 21, 2024
Listen on Bandcamp!
Caravan: https://
In a Sentimental Mood: https://
“Who inspires you?”
I'm very influenced by a lot of different eras of music. My dad gave me a huge record collection he had saved from his times and his siblings' times as a flower child in the '60s. His whole family was super musical and his brother had opened up for Led Zeppelin and John Lennon and alot of other artists in Toronto. So I had a pretty vast musical education as a teenager constantly listening to rock and punk records he gave me from that time period and I still love all that music, like the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith and Beck all that alternative rock.. Then I got a guitar and would teach myself all the songs from 1960s bands I was listening to, and I started to perform that way... then I got into listening to more blues, jazz and earlier eras of music from there. I got more into jazz as I picked up the accordion and violin when I was 20 because it felt like a natural progression musically; as you start to become more talented at music and want to play music that is more stimulating and challenging. I'm inspired by many things though as I'm very interdisciplinary as an artist. I write a ton, and I always have, and I also draw and paint a lot. These activities are more introverted so it gives me some peace from being a performer. I'm inspired by literature, poetry, painting, photography, filmmaking... and that all feeds into my music aswell. I generally like artists who are raw and bold in some way; and who are transgressive and have pushed against boundaries and been true to themselves. I don't like things that feel fake.
Have you ever traveled for a show?
Yes! Over the last year I have made trips to New York to model in fashion week, staying for 6 months to perform in iconic NYC jazz venues such as where Billie Holiday was first discovered, and connect with jazz legends at such infamous venues like the Blue Note and Smalls jazz club. I was featured in Times Square with a large billboard promoting my new album during fashion week.
What is the meaning behind the album?
Well I’d say this album is very romantic, and ambient, with the song selection and the style we play them in. I wanted this album to have a smooth jazz feeling and be less bluesy and old timey than my last album and I think we succeeded in trying out a new tone as a singer and also with the change in instrumentation. My next album will be a jazz piano album, so I’m always interested exploring new sounds and new instruments.
Travel to new cities to be influenced by different art scenes. Some of my most inspiring moments happened when I got out of my comfort zone- especially coming from Canada; the art scenes can be very small and insular because the cities are all relatively new compared to American or European cities. I was really influenced in my early twenties hitchhiking around europe, india, and Scotland with my accordion and guitar- playing French music to terraces and street restaurants, performing at the Edinburgh fringe festival, meeting artists from New Orleans and UK. I met so many artists traveling that way as a young woman, and it helped to expose me to different genres of music and to have a broad minded approach to the arts. It’s not good to limit yourself to one genre, one instrument or one scene too early on- explore the world with your music as much as you can and try to learn how other cultures do things artistically. There’s a lot more in the world when it comes to music and art than the western mindset. Especially as meditation is such a big part of my artistic practice, going to India and Indonesia influenced me a lot as well. It’s good to get out of North America if you can and try to free your mind.
Another advice I’d give is to practice every day, for at least an hour (but probably more), at anything you want to be good at. If you don’t practice everyday, that is the reason why you don’t have that “talent”- it’s not really talent, it’s usually unseen discipline that is why people become highly skilled at a certain art form. If you find it hard to concentrate then start with a meditation practice- studying yoga since I was 14 really has influenced me a ton in everything artistic that I do.
Then finally I’d say, learn quite a lot of art history. This comes back to the multicultural and broad minded thing, but- I think one of the biggest mistakes I see in the art/music world today is people being ignorant to what has happened already in the world, not doing research and then thinking they are the best at something that actually they are very average at. When we really study art history we become very humble in our craft, because how could we not? We know that there are thousands of artists who were better who have come before us.
“What is your main philosophy and intention behind your work?”
For this album, I wanted to create a live studio album with a full jazz band that paid respect to some of the artists who have influenced me, like Duke Ellington and Django Reinhardt and Chet Baker, while continuing to experiment and develop my own sound as a singer and producer/accordionist. It’s definitely a very romantic and ambient record which I feel speaks to my nature as a very dreamy and traveling person. The idea of “Violet Drift” is to capture the dreamy quality of jazz accordion music with a full band and create something really haunting and romantic.
In terms of philosophy, I’d say that the way we record live, stripped down jazz like this is kind of a philosophy- all the instrumentalists are together in one room at the same time, so we just do a few takes of each track then move on. I think it comes out sounding a lot more dynamic and energetic this way as opposed to trying to layer parts in or record each player separately- that can come out having a more stale quality. I love when you can really hear live musicians interacting in the studio on a record as it preserves some of the quality of live music, which is something I really believe in and live for; people improvise differently on every take so it can be exciting to listen back to them as the producer to decide which to use. We did have the opportunity to overdub the vocals on this record which was different from my first album, where I was singing and playing at the same time. I’m really happy with how it came out with the overdubbed vocals, being able to try a few different styles as a singer and see what went well with the instrumental takes. It was a really fun process and I’ll definitely keep recording that way, it helped me to learn about what works for me as a singer and how versatile my voice can be when I don’t need to play accordion at the same time. One of the favorite things I love about recording is how much you can learn about yourself as a performer when you get the chance to hear what is and isn’t working in the studio.
You can read Lucy's WAIL Featured Artist Article here, which includes links to music, videos and social media!
[Interview by Jamie Rose McKeague of WAIL and Lucy Lambert, 2025]