It’s possible – even probable – that our listeners in the U.S. have never heard of Eleanor Collins. There are no albums out under her name. You’ve got to dig to find recordings of her on any streaming platforms.
But jazz fans in Canada? There is a much better chance they’ll know the vocalist dubbed Canada’s “First Lady of Jazz.” She’s revered not only for her voice but for her groundbreaking achievements over a life that spanned 104 years. Although you’d understand if the story did start and end with that voice.
Collins was born in Edmonton, Alberta, to parents of Black and Creole Indian heritage. At 15, she won a singing contest, but when Collins moved to Vancouver in the late ‘30s, her exposure started to increase, and she soon started performing on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio shows.
In 1942, with a family of four of her own, Collins moved to the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, but not without protest. Members of the neighborhood formed a petition in an attempt to prevent her family from moving there. Her response was to volunteer at local school PTAs and teach music to the Girl Guides, an organization similar to the Girl Scouts.
“I’m a great believer that wherever you are, whatever corner you are – you can be doing everyone some good. Everyone," Collins said in a 1988 episode of the CBC’s show Then and Now.
"By making sure that you have yourself centered, that you are a person who’s in harmony with the universe that is giving out the right vibes that will help everyone. So you don’t feel that ‘I must be in this location because that’s the only time I can help.’”
That mindset served Collins well not only at a local level but on a national one, too. Her notoriety rose considerably after her appearance in a 1954 CBC production called Bamboula: A Day in the West Indies.
It was the first Canadian TV show with a mixed-race cast, and reactions to her presence compelled the CBC to offer Collins her own program. This made her the first Black person in North America to host a nationally broadcast television series.
The accolades and honors continued to rack up over the decades. In 1992, she was inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame. In 2014, she was named a member of the Order of Canada, and in 2022, she was featured on a commemorative stamp by Canada Post.
Stacey Zorn, a music teacher at Prince Charles Elementary School in Surrey, BC, first found out about Collins when she saw her on that stamp. Zorn researched Collins' past and immediately decided to get her students involved. Turns out Surrey is less than 10 miles from Burnaby, the community that 80 years prior had tried to reject Collins before even getting to know her.
Flash forward to the current day and that Burnaby is quite diverse. It is now filled with Asian, Arabic, Black and Latino students. The more Zorn and her students found out about Collins, the more they wanted to actually contact her. The students created cards, artwork and hand-written notes, which Zorn dropped off to Collins in person.
“She was so incredibly kind and generous, and took the time to go through the books of drawings and look at the drawings that every single student made her, and to read all of the names of all 15 or 16 cards from all the classes at my school, and the fact that I could share that with the kids meant everything to them,” Zorn said.
Sylvia Hamilton, a retired journalism professor at the University of King’s College in Nova Scotia, noted just how impactful Collin’s community outreach was and remains.
“Because she worked with young people, and young people are so important around how attitudes can change; young children are not born with racist attitudes – we teach them," Hamilton said.
"And so when we have young people who can look at someone and appreciate them and be surprised and happy – that’s the work. That’s how the work has an impact. How her voice, how her presence, her legacy has played out.”
Here’s to Eleanor Collins' contribution not just to jazz, but to her community, her city, her province and her entire country.
