The keyboard before Lorraine Desmarais is like the canvas for the visual artist. Her music making is an experience of colors and shading, light and perspective of depth and surfaces and nuance. She is easily comfortable in many musical styles and like colors of the painters palette she bridges blends and mixes by exploiting the variances and varieties. No matter how varied the sound is distinctively Demarais. It is sensitive and aware, spirited and in control but that control comes with a liberty in improvisation and creative impulses that flow with an abandon throughout her artistry. As a composer she truly commands the colors of the sounds as she weaves stories and musical adventures in a uniquely defined original sharing of expressions and ideas. She is a bandleader helming small ensembles such as jazz trios and larger big bands. Each format allows her to present her creativity by exploiting the different textures of ensemble dynamics, including the way the playing actually happens and the demands of writing for different groupings and voices of instruments. It truly is about how Lorraine colors her music canvases. Sound is color because the colors are her sounds.