Sass Jordan

August 27, 2008

Opening Act: The Filter Kings 

Sass Jordan was born in Birmingham, England in the early '60s to a French professor and an actress/ballet dancer. The family, which also included younger brother Daniel, traveled the world before finally settling in Montreal in the late '60s. Along the way, a particularly memorable voyage on a Russian tramp steamer to India marked the beginning of a young girl's exotic adventure that played out, in part, in Pondicherry where she attended a Catholic girl's school and studied the Tamil language. A very youthful Jordan made her screen debut in the subsequent NFB documentary, The India Trip.

Jordan first made her name swingin' a mean bass and singing lead with late '70s Montreal New Wave quartet The Pinups, as she began carving out a reputation as a charismatic and exciting vocalist and performer. She embarked on a solo career in the mid-'80s, biding her time initially as she honed her writing skills by contributing material to recording projects by a number of high profile Quebec artists and by handling backing vocals for a variety of acts, most notably The Box. Between forays to New York to scope out the scene there, she became one of the first veejays in Canada as host and interviewer on a Montreal video show, the precursor to MusiquePlus. Her first album, Tell Somebody, was released in 1988 and brought with it multiple trophies, a Juno Award in Canada, and her first platinum CD.

It was an impressive debut. Her singing and performing talents were enthusiastically promoted almost from the outset by some of the legends of the music world including Gene Simmons of KISS, members of the bands Cheap Trick and Van Halen and the late chart-topping composer Michael Kamen, whose recommendation led to an audition for a lead role as the terrorist in the film Die Hard 3 opposite Bruce Willis. Along the way, there was also a friendship with late counterculture guru, Dr. Timothy Leary.

By the late '90s, she had moved from Los Angeles to a farmhouse in Ontario. She subsequently recorded two more CDs: Present and Hot Gossip, both of which reflected her lightened mood and changed outlook on life as she began to take an on-going and deepening interest in alternative lifestyles and to broaden her horizons as an artist. As an actress, she was featured in the Toronto and Winnipeg productions of The Vagina Monologues before heading for New York to take on the lead role of Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway hit musical, Love Janis. In 2003, the year she took on duties as a judge on the TV ratings blockbuster, Canadian Idol, and also shared the stage with The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and others as part of the history-making SARS relief concert in Toronto.

Visit Sass Jordan online at http://www.sassjordan.com/