Similar Artists:
Jessica Williams,
Stephen Scott,
Mulgrew Miller,
Geri Allen,
Kenny Kirkland,
Bennie Green,
Michele Rosewoman,
James Williams,
James Weidman
Influenced By:
Worked With:
Lewis Nash,
Richard Seidel ,
Don Sickler,
Jim Anderson ,
Billy Drummond ,
Joe Henderson,
J.J. Johnson,
Jon Faddis,
Peter Washington
- Born: March 24, 1962, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
- Active: '90s, 2000s
- Genres: Jazz
- Instrument: Piano
- Representative Albums: "For the Moment", "Renee Rosnes", "Letter to Evans
- Representative Songs: "As We Are Now", "Ancestors", "Blues Connotation
Biography
Like Danilo Perez, Brad Mehldau and any number of other up and coming jazz pianists, Canadian raised piano player and composer Renee Rosnes keeps challenging herself and pushing herself and her band in new directions.As a young pianist in Vancouver, B.C., Rosnes took her musical cues and inspiration from people like Oscar Peterson, McCoy Tyner and Horace Silver. She began playing classical piano at age 3 and got bitten by the jazz bug in high school, after a high school music teacher recruited her for the jazz band. She attended the University of Toronto for two years to study classical performance, but left to go back home to Vancouver and begin playing jazz full time because she knew where her heart lied and what she wanted to do professionally. The early 1980's jazz club scene in Vancouver, B.C. was a vibrant, healthy one, and she had the opportunity to sit in with and learn from many American and Canadian jazz masters, among them Sarah Vaughan, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald and Toshiko Akiyoshi. At an after hours jazz club, she sat in with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Woody Shaw.
After receiving a Canada Council on the Arts grant in 1986, Rosnes moved to New York City. She'd made a lot of friends from New York in all her time in the after-hours club in Vancouver, so it wasn't like she was stepping into alien territory. Within a couple of years, she was getting calls from good people, and a first big break was being recruited by tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson to be part of his quartet. Later in the 1980's she joined the small groups of saxophonist Wayne Shorter and trombonist J.J. Johnson, and began to showcase her skills as part of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, under the direction of trumpeter Jon Faddis. Rosnes has also performed with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, the Danish Radio Big Band and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Tribute Band.
She began her long association with Blue Note Records in 1990. Her releases for Blue Note include her self-titled debut in 1990, "For The Moment," "Without Words," "Ancestors," "As We Are Now," "Art and Soul," "With A Little Help From My Friends," "Life On Earth," and "Renee Rosnes and the Danish Big Band."
To be sure, one of Rosnes' finest efforts in the 1990's was her "Life On Earth" album, which fused the indigenous musics of India, Senegal, Indonesia and Brazil with her own hardcore jazz piano stylings.
Her nine critically praised albums for Blue Note Records have garnered her four Juno Awards and several Canadian National Jazz Awards.
In addition to leading her own ensembles, which usually include her husband, drummer Billy Drummond and saxophonist Walt Weiskopf, Rosnes also frequently performs with vibist Bobby Hutcherson and is an original member of the San Francisco Jazz Collective, an all-star octet.
Her latest release is "A Time For Love," on VideoArts Music, a trio recording with drummer Lewis Nash and bassist Peter Washington. ~ Richard Skelly, All Music Guide
