Ranee Lee, CM (born October 26, 1942) is an American jazz singer and musician who resides in Montreal, Quebec. She is also an actor, author, educator and television host. Referred as “Montreal's Queen of Jazz,” Lee is a Juno Award winner, two-times Top Canadian Female Jazz Vocalist by Jazz Report Magazine and was honored with the International Association of Jazz Educators Awards for her outstanding contribution to jazz music.
Born in Brooklyn, Lee performed as a singer while in high school and in the mid-60s, she was invited to join a dance troupe and tour various parts of the U.S. and then Canada. As one of the company members who sang, the dance performance was extended with added vocals generally provided by Lee. After a few years of performing throughout Ontario and the U.S. and, eventually, discovering Montreal, then falling in love with one of her native sons, Montreal became her home. She subsequently landed a starring role playing Billie Holiday in Lady Day, and won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance. After which she began recording as a vocalist, releasing her first album All Grown Up in 1980 which contained disco oriented songs.
It was an energetic time on the music scene in Canada and Lee has fond memories of the era. Thankfully, she came to realize that the music of Billie Holiday, and others of the jazz genre, continue and remain. Disco wass a distant memory as she began to sing Jazz songs in the night clubs, leading to her next release Live at the Bijou in 1984, was the first of many albums with the Justin Time label. Lee’s actual understanding of jazz phrasing and the development of a song gradually set in the more she became aware of the style of the music and its requirements.
She wrote and starred in Dark Divas, The Musical, a tribute to the lives and careers of seven of the most popular female jazz singers of the 20th century: Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey, Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan. She is also a children's book writer (author of Nana, What Do You Say?); an educator, long associated with the University of Laval in Quebec City and the Schulich School of Music of McGill University; and she hosted the television series The Performers.
Here’s a 2022 digital single of “I’m Alive”
Ranee’s impressive discography is filled with masterworks: “The Musical, Jazz on Broadway”, being one of them, was a successful marriage of jazz standards and the music of Broadway. In 1994 and again in1995, Ranee received the Top Canadian Female Jazz Vocalist Award presented by Jazz Report magazine. Her album “I Thought About You” was the first nominated recording for a Juno Award in the Best Mainstream Jazz category in 1995. In March 2003 Ranee received her third Juno nomination for “Maple Groove: Songs From The Great Canadian Songbook,” featuring selections from some of Canada’s greatest songwriters.
Throughout her career Ranee has performed with many jazz notables, including Clark Terry, Bill Mayes, Herbie Ellis, Red Mitchell, Milt Hinton, Oliver Jones, Terry Clarke, John Bunch, George Arvanitas, to name a few. Lee is no stranger to the road; she has toured with her own group throughout America and has played at many prestigious jazz festivals, most recently the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the Canada Capital festival in Sao Paulo. Ranee has toured throughout all of Spain and France, and other Scandinavian countries, as well as England.
As an educator, Ranee has been part of the University of Laval faculty in Quebec City for twelve years, and The Schulich School of Music of McGill University faculty for over twenty years. She won the Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award in 1988 for her musical and actorial achievements. Her music appears in the animated short film Black Soul (2000). Lee was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2006. She received the International Association of Jazz Educators award in 2004 and 2008.
In 2007 Ranee was given the award in the category for Arts and Culture and an award for appreciation and contribution to the development of the McGill Jazz Program by the McGill Schulich School of Music. In April 2010, Ranee won the Juno Vocal Jazz Album of the year for the recording of “Ranee Lee Lives Upstairs.
Ranee Lee is now celebrating thirty-five years in Montreal where she enjoys a successful, multi faceted career as one of Canada’s most popular jazz vocalists, an award-winning actress, a songwriter, and a proud author of children’s books.
She has performed regularly this year at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and in November will be performing with her quintet at the Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill in Montreal.
(Edited from articles @ Schulich School of Music, McGill University webpage, Westmount Mag, & Upstairs Jazz.com)