Thursday, September 07, 2006
Rene Marie does things her way
Taste of the Blue Ridge Blues & Jazz Festival
Music
IO Jukebox
Lonnie Plaxico (bassist with the Rodney Jones Group)
Guitar Shorty
Kevin Selfe and the Tornadoes
Logistics
- Saturday, Elmwood Park
- Tickets: $15 in advance; $18 at the gate. Children 12 and under admitted free. Tickets at gate $15 for students with high school and college IDs.
- Food from area restaurants, beer and wine available.
- 342-2640 ext. 247, tobr.org
Schedule of Performers
- Noon — Deanie Blues Band (winner of the James River Blues Society competition)
- 1:05 p.m. — Modern Groove Syndicate
- 2:45 p.m. — Kevin Selfe and the Tornadoes
- 4:20 p.m. — Rodney Jones Group, featuring Lonnie Plaxico
- 5:55 p.m. — Guitar Shorty
- 7:30 p.m. — Rene Marie
- 9:15 p.m. — James Cotton
- 10 p.m.-2 a.m. — Late-night blues jam at Martin's Downtown Bar and Grill, 413 First St., $10.
Interviews
Rene Marie became an international star and one of the most celebrated vocalists in contemporary jazz by doing things her own way. One night in Chicago, though, she might've jazzed things up a little too much.
Marie, who was known as Rene Marie Croan for most of the time she called Roanoke home, was touring in the wake of her "Serene Renegade" CD, a challenging, ambitious project that confounded some longtime fans with its personal subject matter and defiantly nonjazz arrangements. While on tour in 2005, she sang many of her original compositions from that CD, which prompted the owner of a prominent Chicago jazz club to get in her face and chastise her during one of her appearances.
"Nobody wants to hear your originals," the club owner told her. "Sing the standards the way they ought to be sung."
Marie's reaction? Forceful yet graceful and sophisticated, just like her silky voice.
"I came back the next night and did all originals," she said by phone from her new home in Broomfield, Colo. "I really appreciated him getting in my face like that. So many people will just talk behind your back. I appreciated hearing what he thought."
She even wrote a song for the guy, "This One's for Joe."
In short, she stood her ground and plotted her own course, the same thing she's been doing since a fateful night 10 years ago when she got up the nerve to sing at an open-mike night at Montano's in Roanoke. Then began the fairy-tale ride that led to gigs around Roanoke, then her deal with the Maxjazz record label, then worldwide touring, critical acclaim and comparisons to contemporary jazz greats Cassandra Wilson and Dianne Reeves.
The fairy tale has featured a few rough chapters. Her first marriage ended as her career began to take flight. Her forays into original material alienated a few longtime fans, while earning mostly positive critical reviews.
She remains unbowed and undeterred. Newly married and settled into her new life in Colorado, Marie will take the stage in her hometown as one of the headliners for Saturday's SunTrust Taste of the Blue Ridge Blues and Jazz Festival. Even though she plans to sing many songs from "Serene Renegade," just as she did when she last sang here at Jefferson Center in 2004, she'll ladle out a few old favorites.
"For some people, it's like going to a restaurant and not knowing anything on the menu," she said of the reaction she sometimes gets for new songs. "Sometimes you just want the french fries and the macaroni and cheese. I'll have a few fries and mac and cheese."
Even if she's singing musical comfort food, she goes by her own recipe. Nobody spices up an old standard like Rene Marie, which is why she has been one of the most intriguing figures in jazz for the past decade. Every lounge singer this side of the mountains sings "Summertime," but Marie's version subverts the standard melody and turns it into a modal workout. No one ever thought to combine the Southern anthem "Dixie" with the civil rights protest song "Strange Fruit," but Marie did.
"It's not everyone's cup of tea," she admits, "but it keeps the musicians interested."
Hers will be the most-awaited performance of the day, and one of her last for a while, it seems. Lately, her muse has taken her on a different creative path, which includes more writing, composing and even some acting. She's writing a one-woman stage show that already sounds controversial, merely judging by its working title: "The Slut Energy Theory."
