L.A. Beat

Even though there are horns throughout much of  her brand new CD ‘Across the Plains’ Jolene Higgins, aka Little Miss Higgins, says it is all about the songs.
She said there are some great horn arrangements from Calgary based clarinet player Cedric Blary throughout the CD.
“A lot of the music I listen to, especially jazz from the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s  had great places for horns in them. they add such flavours and colours,” said the Brooks, Alberta born blues/jazz guitarist/singer from her home in Nokomis, Saskatchewan, where she is getting ready to continue a tour of Alberta and B.C. until the end of May which takes over  the Slice, tomorrow, April 29.
“It was a lot of fun recording them,” she said adding she co-produced the CD with the D-Rangers’ Jaxon Haldane in Bedside Studios in Winnipeg. The horns  are all over songs like ‘Wash Those Blues Away,” and turned out fantastic.
“It was great working with Jaxon. I’d never worked with him before, but I know him from Winnipeg and have hung out with him as a musician. He comes from that old bluegrass, folk and country . So I knew he would keep the CD close to the roots and a little less over-produced. He keeps it rooted,” she continued adding Little Miss Higgins is touring with Foy Taylor and stand up bassist Joey Lorer, who plays with the Cracker Cats and Heartstrings. They have worked with Lorer many times.
“We have a little more freedom. It’s really opened spaces up for us,” she said adding they aren’t touring with a horn section this time.
“Some day we may tour with a horn section. I play a lot of lead guitar anyway. In old blues and jazz the electric guitar ended up taking over lead parts. The songs stand on their own anyway. They horns are just there when the song needs them. It’s a really very cool Dixieland sound,” she continued adding  a lot of the songs have been played live and road tested. They will take a break at the end of May, then go to the Maritimes for more tour dates.
“The CD (which just came out on April 20)  is a mixture of songs that have been played on the road. Many others are older songs that I’ve never played live before. It’s just  songs I’ve been working on,” she continued adding she doesn’t have any favourites off the new CD yet.
“We’ll be playing most of the new songs, probably all of them. And we do a foot stomping, hand clapping version of ‘Gather My Fruit.’ it’s all a capella so we have  quite a bit of freedom and it’s been received well. And we’ll also be playing some old favourites,” she said.
Tickets for the show, which begins at 9 p.m., cost $10. Or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to get a pair of tickets.. Just answer the question, Where does Little Miss Higgins call home?