Name: Holly Cole at The Port Theatre
Start: 2025-09-13T19:00:00-07:00
Location: The Port Theatre

Nanaimo International Jazz Festival is proud to present Holly Cole’s Dark Moon Tour as our 2025 Fall Festival Headliner.
Holly Cole is a renowned Canadian/International jazz singer who began her career in 1989 with the release of her 4-song EP ‘Christmas Blues’ under indie label Alert Music, followed by her debut album ‘Girl Talk’ in 1990.
In 1992, she signed with Blue Note’s Manhattan imprint and released ‘Blame It on My Youth’ which achieved Platinum + sales in Canada, over 200,000 copies internationally, and based on the success of the single “Calling You”, a number 1 charted single and album in Japan. The next album based on her hit rendition of Johnny Nash’s, “I Can See Clearly Now” and its accompanying video cemented her success internationally setting up her following release, the critically acclaimed, Temptation, an album made up of material exclusively written by Tom Waits, one of Holly favourite songwriters.
With 12 albums to her name, Cole has achieved multi-platinum sales and received numerous awards, including 2 Juno Awards (out of 8 nominations) and 2 Gemini Awards. She has also won 2 Japanese Grand Prix Gold Disc Awards and the prestigious Ella Fitzgerald Award from the Montreal Jazz Festival, joining the ranks of Aretha Franklin, Diana Krall and Etta James. In 2014, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University.
In 2019, Holly Cole reunited the original Holly Cole Trio, with David Pitch on bass and Aaron Davis on piano, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. They performed at the cabaret Lion d'Or in Montreal, and these special shows were recorded and became the 2021 album ‘Montreal’.
For Christmas 2022, Cole released a remastered compilation combining her holiday releases from 1989 and 2001, titled anew ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside and I Have the Christmas Blues’.
‘Dark Moon’ is available via Rumpus Room/Universal Music Canada.
www.hollycole.com