Singer strives to musically reflect the America she loves

Spoleto 2010 News, stories and reviews

"It took me a while to understand that my musical voice is not boisterous and

bold. It thrives on long periods of uninterrupted quiet. If my musical ideas

were an animal it would be a shy little bunny rabbit that comes out when nobody

is around, sittin' and eatin' and thinkin' bout thangs and running away at the

first threatening sound or movement. If my musical ideas were a plant, it would

be that little teeny-tiny flower that just missed being crushed by the tree that

fell in the forest that nobody heard."

Vocalist Rene Marie, on how she develops her songs

Soon after performing at Spoleto in 2007, singer Rene Marie went into the proverbial woodshed, jazz talk for working in isolation.

She's out of the shed now and she and her killer band are set to storm the stage at Gaillard Municipal Auditorium today for a highly anticipated return concert.

What you'll hear is selected excerpts from a work-in-progress refinement of a project by the Denver-area resident.

"'Voice of My Beautiful Country' is the name of a suite I composed shortly after an interview in Russia several years ago during which the interviewer asked me a question about being American," Marie said in recent e-mail conversation. "Out of the interviewer's pointed questions came a strong need to understand and express how I feel about having grown up in this country as an American woman whose ancestors were slaves.

"The suite consists of four songs I grew up loving to sing: 'America the Beautiful,' 'My Country Tis of Thee,' 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and 'Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing.'"

Like many other artists, Marie probably wouldn't limit her music to the category of jazz but her stuff swings like all get-out and she and her musicians are totally steeped in the jazz tradition.

Her band, her partners in time, consists of pianist Kevin Bales, bassist Rodney Jordan and Charleston drummer Quentin Baxter. Like the Tierney Sutton Band that opened the festival's Jazz & More series, this group is a close knit, tightly woven ensemble.

Check out what Marie says of her colleagues:

"I was describing to someone how making music on stage with the cats is like a perpetually maintained high; and, as a play on words, I

jokingly referred to them as 'high maintenance.' It was so funny to me because those guys are anything BUT high maintenance.

"Anyway, somehow the name stuck and that's what I call them, tongue-in-cheek of course. And they (seem to) accept it good-naturedly. Quentin has been like the glue in this band because it was his suggestion to bring in Rodney and Kevin. He instinctively knew that they were just the musicians I was looking for to bring about the sound I was hearing in my head but had heretofore been unable to transfer to a performance on stage."

This sound she talks about is totally unique to her. She has all the elements of the great jazz singers - perfect pitch, impeccable rhythmic feel, range and lyricism - but her voice is her own. That comes out of her innate abilities and her meticulously composing and arranging her material.

Series producer Michael Grofsorean said, "I think this is a very exciting time for music worldwide. One of its traits is new composition. Today's artists are writing furiously. Historically, this hasn't been typical of jazz singers, but it is typical of René Marie, and one of the things that makes her stand out.

"I have not met a more powerful and articulate artist in my life."

Of "Voice of My Beautiful Country," Marie says, "My arrangement of these songs is a straight-up reflection of specific aspects of American music — jazz, gospel and blues — that still retains the same patriotic lyrics that I learned as a child in my segregated hometown of Warrenton, Va., 40 miles from our nation's capital. I composed the music for these songs over a period of four to five years, finally understanding how I wanted to finish the last movement after Barack Obama won the Iowa primary in 2008."

Since going back on the road, the band has traveled to Poland, Brazil, Mexico and many stops in the U.S. Marie continues to tweak the suite.

"The result has become a musical pastiche of rhythms, colloquial expressions, dialects and topics which more accurately reflect the America I grew up in and live in now, the America with which I more honestly identify, that more accurately reflects the people I know, the America I love," she said.

Like Marie, all the instrumentalists are virtuosi. Having played, traveled, suffered and partied together for years now, they are quite a cohesive unit, revealing their trust and affection in their art.

The band had an engagement at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola in New York City in April, where it has worked several times before.

Baxter said Wednesday, "One night, between sets, while enjoying a really nice bottle of Priorat, we all humbly agreed that we are truly 'happy and blessed' to be able to make music with one another with a level of musical trust that allows every performance to have it's very own, unique synergy. With raised glasses, we toasted, 'Here's to music.'"