Angela Verbrugge & Ray Gallon
Biography Angela Verbrugge & Ray Gallon
Angela Verbrugge
is a Canadian jazz vocalist, songwriter, and performer whose work blends the interpretive depth of an actor with the instincts of a trained musician and a lifelong devotion to the Great American Songbook. Based on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, she drew international attention with her 2019 debut, The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night, recorded in New York with pianist Ray Gallon and co-produced by bassist Cameron Brown (Jazz Messengers, George Adams, Sheila Jordan). Toronto Music Report hailed it as “a perfect album,” and the release earned Verbrugge a spot on music historian Scott Yanow’s list of the top 30 jazz albums of the year. In 2020, she won the JazzTimes Readers’ Poll for Best Female Vocalist, affirming the originality of her approach.
Verbrugge’s artistry reflects a distinctive combination: the storytelling power of a trained actor and the craft of a working musician. Having studied classical piano, theory, and trombone in her youth, she performs not simply as a singer but as a fellow instrumentalist, shaping arrangements, writing lead sheets, and contributing original compositions and lyrics. Critics have often highlighted this dual strength, noting both her interpretive range and her growing impact as a lyricist. Her style is firmly rooted in the swing-era and cool-school vocal traditions of the 1940s and ’50s — Anita O’Day, Helen Merrill, Dinah Washington, June Christy, Ella Fitzgerald — while carrying a modern sensibility.
Her sophomore release, Love for Connoisseurs (2022), marked a bold step into original songwriting. Featuring collaborations with Gallon, Nick Hempton, Ken Fowser, and others, the album once again landed on Yanow’s annual top 30 list. International outlets from Jazzwise to Jersey Jazz praised her personality and writing, while JazzWeekly described her as “fun and quirky, hip and a hoot, wispy and romantic, and [she] cleverly swings.” The Syncopated Times likened her precision and range to Annie Ross, underscoring her strengths as both interpreter and lyricist. Her third album, Somewhere (2024, Origin’s OA2 label), offered a collection of standards noted for restraint and clarity, with Michael Steinman (JazzLives) praising her “light touch with songs that ordinarily lead singers to melodrama,” and JazzWeeklyconcluding, “Less is more on this charmer.”
Her accomplishments have been recognized with major accolades. In addition to the JazzTimes poll win, she was nominated for Jazz Artist of the Year at the 2024 Western Canadian Music Awards — a category spanning all instruments and styles. Her albums have charted on Canada’s Earshot reports and received airplay on CBC, NPR, and JazzWeek-reporting stations worldwide. In Japan, Europe, and the U.S., her CDs are stocked by major retailers, and her songs have appeared on editorial and themed playlists across Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify. She has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, FACTOR, Creative BC, Music BC, and the Province of British Columbia.
Born in Kingston, Ontario, Verbrugge grew up in a household where her mother accompanied school assemblies and her grandmother played organ at family gatherings. Old songbooks became her childhood companions, and by her teens she was performing with the Kingston Symphony in Gilbert and Sullivan productions and at the Grand Theatre in classic musicals. She studied acting at George Brown College’s Theatre Studies program in Toronto, graduating as one of the youngest in her cohort, and initially launched a career on stage. After moving to Vancouver in the late 1990s, a car accident that left her with two broken legs ended her acting ambitions. Later, while raising three young children, she faced cancer and emerged with renewed determination to pursue her first love: music. Encouraged at a patient seminar to “follow your passion and never look back,” she immersed herself in jazz study, working with Canadian mentors and attending workshops in the U.S. Her mentorship with Sheila Jordan in 2016 proved pivotal, connecting her to Ray Gallon and Cameron Brown and leading directly to her debut.
Since then, Verbrugge has built an international profile, appearing at leading jazz clubs and festivals across Canada, the UK, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and Türkiye. She has performed with Canadian luminaries including drummer Terry Clarke, bassist Neil Swainson, guitarist Reg Schwager, and multi-instrumentalist Miles Black, while pursuing songwriting collaborations with peers such as Gallon, Hempton, Fowser, Neal Miner, and Caity Gyorgy. Her ensembles often include Juno Award winners, nominees, and Order of Canada recipients, underscoring her place within the top tier of Canadian jazz.
Critics have consistently noted her ability to inhabit characters in song, drawing on her acting background to deliver performances of empathy, wit, and theatrical flair. Raul da Gama observed that “she plays the characters to the hilt, inhabiting their skins,” while JazzTimes remarked that she is an artist with “conspicuously good taste.” Yanow adds that she is “a major lyricist whose songs deserve to be covered by other performers.” With each release, she deepens her dual identity as interpreter and writer, ensuring her work resonates in both timeless standards and new contributions to the repertoire.
Today, Angela Verbrugge continues to tour internationally, teach and mentor, and release acclaimed recordings. With four albums since 2019, she has established herself as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary jazz — an artist whose resilience, musicianship, and interpretive depth mark her as a vital force in the global scene.
Ray Gallon
A NYC-native, pianist Ray Gallon has been a mainstay on the jazz scene for over thirty years. Rooted in bebop and blues, his expressive, swingin’ playing melds old and new into a fresh, original style. Gallon’s latest project as a leader is a critically-acclaimed trio album recorded at Van Gelder Studios with Ron Carter and Lewis Nash for which Bill Charlap wrote the liner notes. As a young player, Ray was taken under the wing of piano giants John Lewis, Hank Jones, and Jaki Byard. He has performed at major jazz festivals and venues around the world with such luminaries as Ron Carter, Lionel Hampton, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, George Adams, Les Paul, and Wycliffe Gordon. Ray has appeared at the White House and the Kennedy Center, sharing the stage with jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Sweets Edison, and Joe Williams. An in-demand accompanist, he has worked with many vocal greats, including Jon Hendricks, Sheila Jordan, Dakota Staton, Gloria Lynne, Jane Monheit and Chaka Khan. Ray's inventive compositions have been recorded by acclaimed artists T.S. Monk and George Adams. His previous trio album, Make Your Move, features the stellar rhythm section of David Wong and Kenny Washington. Ray is a full-time faculty member of the jazz program at The City College of NY in Harlem and the Vermont Jazz Center’s summer workshops and has taught at Juilliard and The New School.
