by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

The comparisons are as oppressive as they are impressive - Norah Jones (female performer, jazzy folk-pop style), Diana Krall (same as previous, add blonde hair) and of course Karen Young (her mom). But Montreal's Coral Egan has been playing her own game, first as an unhyphenated singer (at the Upstairs jazz club and with her first CD, 2002's Juno-nominated The Path of Least Resistance) and now, with the recent My Favorite Distraction, as a complete artist in her own right. The leap is even larger when you consider that Egan dropped a top spot on the Quebec Senior beach volleyball team for it. The Mirror met Egan for coffee at one of her favourite haunts (and former workplace), Café Santropol, and got her story - with a few distractions - in anticipation of her big, two-night stand at this year's Jazz Fest.

Mirror: My Favorite Distraction isn't your first record, but it is your debut as a complete artist.

Coral Egan: All my life, I've always envisioned myself as a singer-songwriter. It's kind of a funny story - I was still working here at Santropol, and working with Charles Papasoff on Catharsis 2, when I started working with [guitarist] Alex Cattaneo. Our first gig was at l'Air du Temps when it was still open, and it was Halloween. We decided to do "Witchcraft," just for the hell of it. The boys were like, "My God, Coral, you can sing jazz!" I was like, yeah, I guess I can. This isn't so hard. So Alex said, "Get rid of your day job, Coral, you should be singing." I was like, "Know what? You're right." Things started rolling, we got a regular weekly gig at Upstairs. I found jazz fun and easy, and I tend to like to do things that are fun and easy - and it was a paying gig.

M: Were you doing standards?

CE: We were, but Alex is a very creative arranger and musician, so we found some really creative directions with what you'd call standards. The reaction was great, and people said I should do an album. While this was happening, Charles Papasoff and I had made some kind of arrangement to eventually work together on some albums. He knew I was a singer-songwriter and, actually, years before this all started, had said, "You should do a jazz album before, because it's not that hard to pierce that market in Canada. You could have a name as a jazz singer without too much trouble. Being a singer-songwriter and piercing the Canadian market is much more difficult." So we did the first album and thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a fairly good reaction and it allowed us to get better gigs and travel a bit. But as I said, my intentions were always to be a singer-songwriter, although it terrified the hell out of me. Doing my own stuff is exactly what I wanted and yet, at the same time, incredibly terrifying. I was very vulnerable - people often ask me about the whole Karen Young thing, did I find it hard. No, but I realized in doing the album that I was affected by the sense of expectation I had for myself. The whole process, last summer, I was a wreck. I was not eating, I was tormented by this thing. But my greatest inspiration is la muse de la dernière minute. I need a deadline, which is what forced me to get it done.

Me, mom and Montreal

M: The music on the album is a fairly fluid mix of jazz, pop, folk and soul. You've said that this is a reflection of being a Montrealer. Can you expand on that?

CE: I had an excellent musical education because of my mom. I grew up listening to pretty much everything except pop - pop was my own thing, when I was a teenager. I wanted to be a normal girl and listen to Corey Hart like the rest of them! (laughs) But she liked some soul, like Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, predominantly, and I'm really happy that she had that influence. I grew up behind the scenes, so I'm very comfortable on stage because of it. I had such an incredible and comfortable education in this business. The instability that comes with being an artist, all of this, was very natural to me. From six to 21, I grew up in this neighbourhood, and now I live here again. It's very multicultural. I grew up in English but I made the decision to learn French - I was in Quebec and I wanted to be québécoise. Some of that's choice and personal aptitude, but a lot of it is growing up in the right environment, and Montreal is so that. I was given so many opportunities in the québécois scene, because of my mother, so I got a lot of notoriety very quickly. I can back it up, I won't say otherwise, but I was given great opportunities because of my upbringing. I was a bit of a princess in that way. But I always just took what came to me. I wasn't very ambitious - or I was terrified, whichever it was (laughs) - but I never forced anything on myself. Maybe that's why I never got into the bar scene. I never thought, "I gotta be seen, I gotta be heard!" Whatever came to me, great!

M: That's something you seem kind of ambivalent about. You're not even sure if it was fear or laziness, but it's a recurring theme on the album.

CE: Absolutely. Distraction is definitely a recurring theme in my life! I'm not very good at not integrating my own thing into my music. I'm fairly honest and not good at hiding things, even if I wanted to.

M: I think most people go through that phase in their late teens and early 20s - maybe it's fear of failure, maybe it's laziness, maybe it's just a sense that one still has a few years -

CE: Or intuition! The intuition to wait for the right moment. I don't know if I regret it. There are moments, perhaps, but I don't have many regrets. I've enjoyed my life. I'm not a very ambitious person, I don't want to become a superstar. I want to have the means to do what I love and survive. If I become a role model, I have my own ambitious as to what to do with that!

Net gains

M: Let's get into volleyball. I remember channel-surfing one day and stumbling across a volleyball game -

CE: Indoor or outdoor?

M: Indoor. Now, I generally can't stand watching organized sports on TV, but I got roped right into it - no dingbats and whizzing noises and electric guitars, no sponsors' logos or anything. It was just the game and that's it.

CE: Well, that's changed (laughs) - especially with beach volleyball. I think that indoor volleyball is established, it has respect, its own place, there's not a lot of hype to it. It's a very straightforward game, very practical. The reason I was attracted to the game is that whatever you're supposed to do, you have to do to perfection, give the ball away and your part is done. There's a bit of a star aspect if you're a hitter. But the essence is to do every gesture as perfectly as possible. That's why it was like a martial art for me. It was more about striving for perfection than winning. That was the drive I had. I wanted to be the perfect player!

M: Which required being a team player.

CE: On a team of six players, that's indoors. Outdoor volleyball is not yet established, so they're trying really hard to get it visible, which means the whole bikini thing, the publicity, the music - which drives me frickin' crazy! I stopped doing tournaments, not for that reason, but I'm so happy that I'll never have to hear that shiny-tunes-hits-whatever stuff ever again in my life. The difference is that playing two on two is much more of an individualistic mentality. You're so much a part of the game and, because you're only two, your margin of error goes up.

M: Is there anything that you were able to take from being an athlete over to your art?

CE: Absolutely, that striving for perfection with every gesture. Also, always remain graceful in every moment. If you're performing and something makes your situation more difficult, what do you do? Do you balk? Does it stop you from being your utmost self or do you roll with the punches? It's the same thing. There's a sense of improvisation on stage which is very similar. In fact, the reason I was able to leave competitive sports is that I was finally able to apply that same energy to creating. I can pour all my heart, soul, mind and ability into my writing, which is, as I said, difficult, but in the end the greatest gift I've given myself.

At Club Soda on Friday and Saturday, July 9–10, 7pm, $26.50

>> Music Listings