Lee, Ranee - Live At Le Bijou

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Med-Lee: It Don't Mean a Thing - On the Street Where You Live - Just in Time - All of Me - Take The 'A' Train	06:27
	2	The Lady is a Tramp	04:17
	3	Only Have Eyes for You	03:30
	4	Hallelujah, I Love Him So	04:37

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Ridin' High	03:12
	2	Honeysuckle Rose	05:24
	3	Guess Who I Saw Today	04:25
	4	Allright, OK - You Win	06:30

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Information/Write-up

Here is Renee's first jazz album. It was never re-issued and this is the only place you can hear it!

Liner Notes:
There are folks who'll tell you that the toughest jazz instrument to play is the voice.

It makes sense. Tough indeed to come up with vocal pipes that can go up against a steamy sax, double-clutching piano or rough-riding trumpet. But when you hear a voice that can, the hairs standing at attention on the back of your neck testify to the fact that something very special is going on.

So meet Ranee Lee.

Or maybe you've already met her; as pop, rhythm & blues or rock singer. Or actress. Or dancer. She is all those things, and with a lot of zest, flair, talent and polish. So much polish, in fact, that when rumours about Ranee's jazz singing began to surface, habitués of Montreal's bar and club crowd were muttering, "Jazz? Oh come on, you're kidding! She's too... popular!"

But those bet-hedgers are the same ecstatic people you hear carrying on, oohing and aahing and applauding on this album; Ranee's jazz debut on record.

Ranee grew up with jazz and gospel in New York City, and she's ripe and ready to spread the word here in Montreal, with a voice that paints this collection of tried-and-true favorites with a whole palette of sounds. Listen to the satiny glide on "It don't mean a thing" ... the ecstatic shout on "Hallelujah I Love Him So"... (wouldn't you love to hear a Ray Charles / Ranee Lee remake of this one?)... the sassy, I-like-a-man-who-takes-his-time sashay on "Honeysuckle Rose". The musicians are with her all the way, giving her the kind of pot-boiling support that players put out for a vocalist who's earned their love and respect. And on every tune, as she's stamping her signature on lyrics that suddenly seem new, Ranee Lee is obviously having a ball!

So pour yourself your favorite taste, put an arm around someone, someone you love, and let Ranee entertain you... with jazz. And if this is her first jazz album, just imagine her second... And her third... And her fourth.
-Katy Malloch, host of CBC Stereo's Jazz Beat, Montreal, February 1984

Having spent the better part of seven years in Montreal without ever hearing Ranee Lee sing, I finally kept a long-standing promise to myself and caught up with her at the Biddies Club late last fall.

I was knocked out by her dynamism, and my review of that performance lauded “Lee, the consummate pro, breathing new life into her dazzling repertoire of jazz standards.”

That observation, based as it was on sampling a couple of sets, certainly stands up as a description of this entire album.

When Ranee Lee tackles these jazz standards, it's like listening to them for the first time all over again. If you haven't heard Ranee Lee before - don't make the same mistake as I did. If you have, you won't need any persuading.
-Gary Steckles, Entertainment Editor, The Gazette, Montreal, February 1984

A triumph of circumstance:
Richard Burnett
Montreal vocalist Ranee Lee celebrates a great unplanned jazz career

When Brooklyn-born Ranee Lee arrived in Montreal as a young 18-year-old woman back in 1970, she had no idea she'd one day be a member of the pantheon of Montreal jazz greats. But 37 years later, after spending the '70s touring North America as a jazz drummer and tenor saxophonist, Lee has been hailed by Jazz Times as "just a little north of Nina Simone and a bit south of Sarah Vaughan... and her phenomenal scatting elevates her to the league of Mel Tormé, Ella Fitzgerald and Mark Murphy."
"I never did plan a jazz career, it was simply circumstances that brought me to Montreal," Lee says today. "I was always working on the road. But Montreal gave me my foundation and got me more involved in jazz. I love this city."

After recording 10 albums for Justin Time Records, publishing her first children's book, Nana, What Do You Say? (Pirouli Press), last month, winning a Dora Mavor Moore Award for portraying Billie Holiday in Lady Day, and winning the affection of her students at McGill's renowned music school, not to mention being named a member of the Order of Canada in 2006, Lee returns this weekend to her first true love, performing with her quintet live on stage. "I still get the butterflies. But that's where I come alive."

Lee will perform four concerts, two sets each night, Nov. 23-24 at Upstairs Jazz Club, which will be recorded for a live album. It'll be released 25 years after her 1983 debut album, Live at the Bijou, the fabled Old Montreal jazz club that was owned by
George Durst, who also featured Lee at his downtown jazz club Biddle's, now called House of Jazz.

"Biddle's has its place and I enjoy the House of Jazz. But that's a different time, another era. I'm not taking away anything from the top-notch musicians working there now. They have routine members doing their shows there, so I don't know if they're open to others. But I like Upstairs. They support up-and-coming jazz students from Concordia and McGill. Some of my students have performed there. I think maybe that's why I may appear to give more allegiance to one club over the other."
-Richard Burnett

Ranee Lee: vocals
Richard Ring: guitar
Peter Kisilenko: bass
Lou Williamson: drums
Luc Gilbert: keyboards

Produced and engineered by Morris Apelbaum
Mastered by Sabin Brunet

Photography by Barry Harris and Jim West
Cover graphic design by Bob Lemm

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