Frankly, I find it just about impossible to be surprised any longer, not because I’ve seen it all—which I haven’t, not even .1% of everything—but because the algorithms that now guide our lives are so far-reaching and effective that everything I encounter seems to look, sound, feel, taste and smell exactly like the type of thing or experience that I ought to encounter, and ought to enjoy encountering. My socks were knocked off, then, when I went to see Beverly Glenn-Copeland play at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival this past summer on a recommendation from a friend. Glenn-Copeland’s music sounded like it came from a parallel world: not completely different, one like ours, with similar musical traditions, but with more ambitious and humane values, and a soundscape to match. Influences of jazz, folk, world, funk, country, blues, opera, new spiritual, ambient, and early electronica genres could be heard, but what held everything together had an ineffable quality that another writer might call magic. Throughout the concert Glenn-Copeland kept insisting that he was simply the messenger, the music having been sent down from higher powers.

Glenn-Copeland has been performing and recording music for more than fifty years now. He represented Canada at Expo 67. His first album was released in 197. His 1986 album Keyboard Fantasies—written in and inspired by Huntsville, ON—registered favourably in the further depths of obscure music appreciation. During that time he also worked as a writer, on Sesame Street among other shows, and as an actor and musician on Mr. Dressup. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when Keyboard Fantasies was reissued, that Glenn-Copeland began to be recognized more widely as a musician. He is a Buddhist, a Black trans man, a trans rights activist, and a complete inspiration in the fight against the feeling that the status quo is inevitable.