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These days you are as likely to find Paisley and her bass on a train or a plane as in a canoe. She takes it with her almost everywhere, but it’s not to play in a classical orchestra this time around. Now she calls the tune – and the tunes are her own collection of sophisticated pop songs delivered with a voice as clear as a bell.

Growing up the lone artist among a pack of health professionals it was assumed that Paisley would follow suit in the family business, but squeamishness for the grittier side of medicine soon led her to the clean-hands business of her passion - music: playing, teaching and managing. Her resume includes degrees in music and education, training at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (NYO) and the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, management positions at both the NYO and the Royal Conservatory of Music, and years of experience performing in professional orchestras, chamber groups and pit bands.

But even at the top of her game in the classical world, Paisley envied those pop and jazz musicians who could play anything they heard. Though she was still firmly glued to the notes on the page, she began writing short stories and poems, and the start of a novel. It was time to drop the feather – why couldn’t she play by ear, too? Once the question was asked, the answer (why not?) arrived, and so did the songs.

Paisley’s songs are hooky vignettes with twists of sophisticated harmony and subtle orchestration that steadfastly refuse categorization. She flips easily between Canadian folk, cabaret, jazz, Celtic, country and pop, tying it all together with her compelling lyrics and ethereal voice. You can hear the wide palette of Brahms, Sibelius, Bach, Stravinsky, Mahler, and Kurt Weill contrasted with the simple stories of Johnny Cash or Emmylou Harris. Her voice has the innocent quality of a young Ella Fitzgerald; her songs can mimic the open acoustic jangle of Pat Metheny Group; the rawness of Tom Waits; or the directness and later experimentation of Jane Siberry, Joni Mitchell and Bjork.

Released only last January, Time In Between has received extensive radio play on CBC and college stations, reaching number one at Toronto’s CIUT and breaking the top 10 at her hometown of Halifax’s CFBX. Produced by four-time Gemini-winning film composer Robert Carli, Time In Between features an all-star cast of Toronto musicians including Kurt Swinghammer, Davide Direnzo and Andrew Downing. The critics loved it, calling the record “a sweet respite in this brief restless life” (the Globe & Mail) and “a folky collection of starry melodies” (the Vancouver Courier), with Toronto’s NOW Magazine praising Paisley’s “voice that rings clear and true”, and the Edmonton Vue Weekly’s Haiku Review advising “bring a box of Kleenex.” Invitations to perform at festival stages across Canada soon followed, including the East Coast Music Awards in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, North By North East and Yonge-Dundas Square.

Two music videos from Time In Between (‘Sweetness’ and ‘Timing’), produced and directed by Gemini-nominated film editor Paul Day, are in rotation on Bravo! and Paisley has recently been featured on CBC Radio’s Fresh Air, City TV Calgary’s Breakfast Television and Bravo!’s Arts & Minds series in support of her Canadian tours.

Paisley’s captivating live show is the result of a performer with years of experience in the spotlight. Her concerts surprise and delight with unexpected moments like the performance of her song ‘Winter 1819’, a ballad chronicling the journey of her ancestors from Scotland to the New World, in which the sound of ropes creaking on a wooden ship and the undulating rhythm of the waves are recreated on the bass. Or like the high-energy reggae/torch rendition of Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Wondering Where the Lions Are’ that brought the house down at Hugh’s Room in Toronto recently.

Paisley Jura’s accomplished and lively band-mates include Toronto pros Mark Kelso on drums (Holly Cole, Amanda Marshall), Joel Schwartz on guitar, mandolin and lapsteel (the Outlanders, Great Lake Swimmers) and Jamie Stager on piano and trombone (Shaw Festival, SalsAfrica). Together they play off each other, tossing rhythms and riffs back and forth, singing sweet harmonies and setting down deep grooves. Paisley’s charming and playful stage manner sets audience and musicians alike at ease, drawing you in to the performance as she invites you to travel down the passages of time with her and the instrument in her hands. Her bass has survived the drawing and redrawing of borders, the birth of a country called Canada, the rise and fall of classical music in society, and now is played by a woman, surely for the first time in two hundred years.

So, what’s next for Paisley? The fast-rising indie newcomer refuses to stand still. In her latest project she dips into her classical orchestral experience to become impressario and artist both: birthing a unique concert series that partners artists of other genres with her own music. Calling her series Secret Rooms, Paisley sets aside traditional notions of concert presentation by offering each show not in a bar, concert hall, church or art gallery, but in a Secret Room. The Secret Rooms venues include the Officers‘ Mess of the Canadian Military College, a working brewery, and a nineteenth-century auction house, among others. Access to these romantic and rich spaces immerses audience members in a new dynamic where visual imagery, sound and secrets create one unforgettable experience.

Secret Rooms takes place in Toronto in November, January, March and May and features guests Alejandra Ribera, the Madawaska Quartet, dancers Gillian McPhail, Robin McPhail and Sean Ling, and film personalities Jamie Kastner, Paul Day and Robert Carli. In between Toronto shows Paisley will be touring across Canada again, then heading off to the United Kingdom for her first international tour in May. A new recording is also in the works, with a 2010 release planned.

Paisley Jura took up the double bass at the age of twelve because it was assumed that girls did not play bass. Her reply to that line of reasoning has always been – why not? Why not play bass? Why not play by ear? Why not write your own music in the style that you hear in your head that day? Why not play a two-hundred-year-old bass and sing at the same time? Why not launch a concert series? Why not, indeed.