The idea for that came to me in a moment of inspiration, quite some time before I began my career as a singer. These moments of grace are unique; you never know when they'll manifest, so I try to pay attention and somehow record the idea, trusting that it'll make sense eventually.

In this case, the meaning was tied into my newly-forming identity as an artist. ''Betty'' is a diminutive of my given name and the ''e'' after the period stands for several things.

First of all, and this serves as a reminder to remember who I was before all of this happened, ''e'' is the first letter of my given name. Secondly, it stands for ''evolution,'' which is a cornerstone of who I am and what I do. It also stands for ''ecstasy,'' which is a good direction to aim for since the happier you feel, the more you can give and the better everything goes. Last but not least, the ''e'' stands for ''ego'' as in, keep it small, which is why it's a small ''e'' and purposely not spelled in capital letters.

So every time I hear the name ''Bet.e,'' as opposed to my given name, which at this point only close family members use, I'm reminded of very important aspects of my identity, as I become more and more of whom I was meant to be.

While I've taken classes here and there, I don't have a formal musical education just yet. I've taught myself most of what I know and I'm still learning. I've always relied on my instinct and my ear: I trust what I hear. This comes in especially handy when producing. I can make decisions quickly and be sure of them, so things move along at a good pace when I'm in the studio.

Music is music. At this point, one can easily access any music from anywhere. I'd been listening to all kinds of music by the time I discovered bossa nova, from vocal jazz to sixties' r&b and soul, to all kinds of rock, etc, etc.

This being said, when I first experienced it, I was bowled over by how beautiful these new sounds were. It was love at first listen and I've never recovered. I remember listening to my Getz/Gilberto cassette for about a year and a half, continually. It was literally the only thing I listened to all day long.

I was trying to decipher what was going on in there, first concentrating on vocals, then guitar, then bass, then percussions and so on, until I began to understand the feel of it.  I could tell this was a whole other level of music, an ''ocean of sounds,'' as Antonio Carlos Jobim eloquently put it.

When I finally found my footing within this profoundly rich musical universe, things fell into place. Much as I had always wanted to sing, I had only now finally found something I could actually picture myself doing. So I formed a band with Stef, the only guy I knew with a taste and a talent for these sounds, and the rest is history.

As mentioned above, the concept of evolution is dear to my heart.  Stef and I had been collaborating together for almost a decade and as with most endeavours, when you really put your heart and soul into something and work as much as you can in a sustained way for that long, you're bound to get results. So, yes, things were progressing nicely.


We were offered an international deal by Universal Music in New-York, which would have taken our project to another level. The thing is, we would have had to make several more albums together, linking us for at least another fifteen years, if not more. I don't think we had the capacity to keep coming up with fresh new ideas and sounds together for that many records, and over such a long period of time.


Because of this, it then became the next logical step to part ways while things were still good, and to use that existing energy to launch new projects and ideas, rather than to keep churning out the same record over and over again. So on one hand, we had the possibility of fame and fortune, but on the other, there was creative stagnation, which to me is completely unbearable and unacceptable.


I would much rather leap into the unknown, which I have in fact done many times, rather than go for old, boring, calcifying, fear-breeding ''security''.

I realized from the start that many people dream of taking substantial time off, but few actually can. So I set out to make the best use of that precious time, knowing it might be the first and last chance I'd ever get to have a completely open agenda, with absolutely no engagements whatsoever.

The first thing I did was rest. I had been running on empty for a while and my batteries were dead. Only when I truly let go did I realize the extent of my exhaustion. So I slept. A lot. Went for walks in nature, read magazines, watched movies. Spent a lot of time alone, in silence. Solitude became my best friend.

I searched, deeply, for answers and eventually found them. Surrounded by nature, I let anxieties, fears and old wounds slowly rise up to the surface, where they could finally see the light of day and be released. (This took a while.)

From the time I was ten years old I'd begun yearning for some real time off and when I finally got it, the relief I felt was immense.

I read countless books and wrote countless pages. I thought and thought and thought and thought. I made sense of my world. Of my life. I fixed things that were broken and righted wrongs. I learned to let go. I contemplated. I evolved. Eventually, I grew.

I began to experience the bigger picture. And my role in it. I allowed my energy to slowly re-emerge: stronger, happier, wiser. Then, I fell. Got back up. Fell again. Then got back up again.  It dawned on me that children aren't afraid of falling when learning how to walk. They just accept it as part of life. I learned to do the same.

I finally uncovered the meaning of 'going with the flow', an art one perfects over a lifetime. I consistently studied the intricacies of my mind as they related to life. Out of this eventually emerged a true sense of inner peace, well-being and happiness.

It took time, concentration, and a whole lot of solitude, but it was well worth it. One of the greatest victories of my life is to have found my center of happiness, as silly as that may sound. It was by far my greatest challenge, my most complex enigma. And during my time off, I finally found the key.

My current best case scenario involves touring extensively all over the world, offering the best of me to the ones who are ready for it. I am working on songs for the next album here and there, gently pulling on the thread of my musical evolution while trying to appreciate and enjoy life's twists and turns along the way.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve and do my best to remain worthy of my calling.

I first began taking care of the business side right from the beginning, out of necessity. To get gigs, we needed to produce a demo and get it out there, so I proceeded by logic. I figured out where we wanted to play, who were the ones in charge, booked appointments and showed up with our demo and a short bio.

In almost every case, we got booked. I had no business background but I'm fairly organized, and every step seemed to present itself quite clearly, so I just followed my instinct. I definitely made a few mistakes over the years, but I learned from them and overall, it's still worth it to have experienced this business from the ground up.

I read several books on the music business and just generally tried to follow up and keep track. When we first played the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 1997, I went to the on-site record store, intending to sell them our cassettes. They grudgingly agreed to take three but I insisted they take way more. ''You don't understand,'' I argued, sweetly, ''you'll run out!'' So they took seven.

After the show, the cassettes promptly sold out and about forty people were turned away. Running to the back of the stage where we had just played, they breathlessly asked for more. So I sent someone  rushing to my home to deliver them a full box.

After the Festival, the record store manager offered to keep selling them at his store. I giddily accepted. (They placed us right beside the Getz/Gilberto tape in a display case. I almost fainted when I saw that. Chants of Wayne's World 's ''We're not worthy! We're not worthy!'' swirling in my head... )

Then I called their biggest competitor. So now I had two stores. And it kind of grew from there. Other stores would call me or I would call them. I always sent a play copy for the store and had really nice paper made with a watermark and our letterhead and always included a handwritten note. I would send the person ordering a free copy and eventually decided to guestlist anyone working in a record store at our shows.

I was sincerely grateful for their help and tried to do little things to show my appreciation. The result was that our records got played in the stores and recommended to customers. We also did several in-stores performances. To me, record store staff acted as our army and we needed to treat them well. It's relatively easy to put a cd into a store, but for people to know it's there is another story.

I applied the same instinctive logic to shows. We played weekly for free in every lounge in Montreal for two to three years (and I remember in those early days calling just about every person in my address book to announce the show) and as soon as I realized we had a bit of a draw, I found a really nice, small venue that held about 100 people, and started producing shows there. Instead of playing 2 or 3 times a week, we played once a month and charged 7$ at the door. We played in that venue for about a year and a half, upping the ante to 10,12 and finally a 15$ cover charge.

By that time, we had self-produced our first cd and sold quite a few of them at every show, giving people the option to write down their coordinates on a card to join our mailing list. We would pick a card at the end of every show and give out a free cd.  I remember one Christmas getting nice, autographed postcards made of a Rio de Janeiro landscape, and actually mailing them to every one on the list!

A buzz was forming and we got featured on the Radio-Canada evening news. The next day, the show was completely sold out and we turned away enough people to fill the venue a second time. After that, I moved us to a larger venue and instead of playing once a month, we played once every two to three months. And that's how it grew.

We didn't tour at all until we were popular enough to do bigger shows, because touring is very expensive and we didn't want to go out of pocket. So we kept on like that, selling our cd's, playing locally and doing the occasional private corporate gig.

In four years we sold 50,000 cd's. By this time I was personally distributing Jazz/Bossa Nova to 150 stores across Canada. I had no computer at the time so I kept track using old-fashioned file folders with handwritten notes, detailing to whom I had spoken to, when I'd called and what the status was. I would rotate the files so that every store got called about once a month!

We eventually hired a full-time employee, and later signed on with Universal Music Canada, retaining ownership of our master recordings and publishing.

The thing is, as much as art is truly involved, for the wheels to turn properly you have to treat it like a business. This industry is littered with artists who fail because they refuse to have anything to do with the business aspect of it. This is a tragedy.  To work that hard on your craft and have it all torn to pieces because of bad judgement is sad and unnecessary.

Someone needs to do this work. If not the artist, then someone trustworthy. If it's very early in one's career, hiring someone for a percentage is almost never worth it because when things really get rolling, this person will most likely take the lion's share of profits. It's probably far better to do as much as you can on your own, for as long as you can, before signing on to a collaboration that should take you to the next level.

You might work intensely, doing 80% business and 20% art for many, many years, but it's still the better long-term scenario if you want your end of the stick to get bigger. This way, you get to keep artistic control and eventually earn the money you deserve. Besides, any worthwhile project in any domain will take years of sustained work and dedication, so arm yourself with patience and soldier on!

Going into this business in the usual way, i.e: a direct signing of an artist to a label, can be fatally demoralizing for the artist because it's a very vulnerable position to be in. Navigating a successful course within this industry requires a high amount of vigilance and dedication. There are many traps.

Of course, if you just want to be like most artists and have a crazy wild ride and not be aware of what's going on and don't care if you end up penniless at the end of it then, by all means, go ahead and ignore everything I've just said!