Nov 19, 2024 12:57 PM
In Memoriam: Roy Haynes, 1925–2024
Powerhouse jazz drummer and bandleader Roy Haynes died Tuesday in Nassau County, New York. He was 99. One of the few…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
(Photo: John Abbott)In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a superlative pianist.
She’s also a bandleader, the founder of Artemis — DownBeat readers’ choice as Jazz Group of Year for 2024 — and a favorite side-person of legendary masters including Ron Carter, in whose Foursight Quartet she has been a member for more than a decade. She has played with Joe Henderson, J.J. Johnson, Wayne Shorter, James Moody and Bobby Hutcherson, just to drop a few of the names on her remarkable resume.
Her post-bop compositions are informed by her classical education, employing advanced harmonies and lush, unpredictable melodies; they often serve as a showcase for her quietly extravagant piano technique. Besides Artemis, many other major artists have recorded her works, including Phil Woods, J.J. Johnson, Michael Dease and the SFJAZZ Collective, of which she was a founding member. With their ambition, formal structure and depth of feeling, her songs put Rosnes in the company of the best jazz composers.
Or, as Bill Charlap, the celebrated pianist and her husband of 17 years, puts it, “You know, I can compose, but Renee is a composer.”
And yet, for her latest album, Crossing Paths (Smoke Sessions), she has put aside composition, temporarily, to focus on an early and abiding love: Brazilian music. For some of her fans the celebration of Brazil may come as a bit of a surprise.
Her previous albums — nine on Blue Note and three on Smoke Sessions — have included occasional forays into Brazil. But none foreshadowed this fusion of classic Brazilian songs and jazz. To fully realize the project, Rosnes recruited an all-star band of musicians from Brazil and the U.S., including bassist John Patitucci, guitarist Chico Pinheiro, drummer Adam Cruz and percussionist Rogério Boccato, with the addition of saxophonist Chris Potter and trombonist Steve Davis on several tracks.
Moreover, she secured the participation of two of the most significant Brazilian singer-songwriters of the last 50 years, Edu Lobo and Joyce Moreno, to sing their own songs; as well as singer Maucha Adnet — a 10-year veteran of performing with Antonio Carlos Jobim in his Banda Nova — to sing two songs by the maestro.
“I was honored to have all three of them on this album,” she said.
Rosnes’ performances on piano sound like nothing she has recorded before. She acknowledged the departure from her usual piano style, saying, “I think you’re finding an authentic Renee in there as well because I’ve loved this music for so long.”
She spoke to DownBeat in a Zoom interview from the two-Steinway home in New Jersey that she shares with Charlap. (For the record, her name is pronounced “Ree-nee” — an affectionate version of Irene, her given name.)
But what is her usual piano style? Her husband describes it as an egoless devotion to what the song demands. On Egberto Gismonti’s frenetic “Frevo,” for instance, she intertwines high-energy solos with Pinheiro, darting and weaving. On another tune, Lobo’s “Pra Dizer Adeus,” she plays the melancholy bossa nova much like Jobim would have done, with an elegant simplicity, even singing along with her piano solo in a very Jobim-like manner. “When Jobim recorded that song,” she said, “he started to spontaneously sing while he was playing. I deferred to Edu about it. I said if he didn’t like it, I wouldn’t do it. He liked it.”
But Crossing Paths contains more than the usual bossa novas that casual fans of Brazilian music might expect; it includes sambas and northeastern regional styles like frevo.
Her love for Brazilian music, like that of many North American fans, goes back to Jobim. “I suppose my first exposure to Brazilian music was through his music. But the first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” which introduced Milton Nascimento to North Americans. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole, checking out all kinds of Brazilian artists.” One in particular attracted her: “Elis Regina — you couldn’t help but fall in love with her; she had so much flair and joy and passion! And all the singer-songwriters (whose songs) she recorded — that led me to Edu Lobo and Gilberto Gil.”
She first had the idea to make a Brazilian album 30 years ago, she said, but the time didn’t seem right. Instead, she recorded occasional Brazilian songs like Gismonti’s “Sanfona” and the Jobim songs “Modinha” and “Double Rainbow” — the latter in a two-piano version with Charlap — but her original music took precedence.
For this album she was ready to do something different. “I started putting together wish lists of (Brazilian) tunes I love, and not pieces that were so commonly played. But, as I learned from Chico and Rogerio, even the pieces I did choose are Brazilian classics, songs that everybody there knows. There’s so much beautiful music. I could have done a whole album of Edu’s music, or Gilberto Gil, or Jobim. And there are so many composers I didn’t feature.
“Once I understood that Edu and Joyce would (participate), I wanted to present their music,” she said. Lobo sings two of his songs (“Casa Forte” and “Pra Dezir Adeus”) and Joyce sings one of hers (“Essa Mulher,” which Elis Regina made famous). There are also songs by Caetano Veloso (“Trilhos Urbanos”), Milton Nascimento (“Estórias da Floresta”), Gilberto Gil (“Amor Até O Fim”) and Egberto Gismonti (“Frevo”). The two songs by Jobim, “Caminhos Cruzados” and “Canta, Canta Mais” — deeper cuts to non-Brazilian audiences — each feature vocals by Adnet.
“Each of these songs is a world unto itself,” she said. In her arranging, Rosnes was trying to get to the essence of the melody and to stay “as true as I could be to the composer’s intention, the emotion of the piece, even if there was no vocalist on that particular song.” She arranged all the songs in advance, decided which instruments she needed for each, and only then chose the musicians. “I needed musicians who I was comfortable with, but also musicians who loved and respected the Brazilian tradition.”
Her relationship with Lobo, now 81, began via email two years ago after he sent her a message on Instagram. “I had recorded his song “Upa Neguinho” on my Ancestors album in 1996. He thanked me for recording the song and said, ‘Nobody recorded it like you did,’ which absolutely floored me.”
One of the legendary singer-songwriters of the second generation of bossa nova, Lobo still sings movingly on the rueful “Pra Dizer Adeus” and with vigor and precision on “Casa Forte,” a one-of-a-kind instrumental with wordless vocals over an intense northeastern baião rhythm. (“It’s similar to a ‘frevo,’” Pinheiro said, “but it’s called a ‘dobrado,’” a kind of Brazilian march.) The song, written at the time of Brazil’s military coup in the 1960s, was mindlessly banned by government censors. “He told me they prohibited him from performing the song live. But he performed it anyway, because he knew there were no lyrics,” Rosnes said.
Rosnes first met Joyce Moreno, universally known as Joyce, in 1998 when she played piano on her album Astronauta: Songs Of Elis, which also featured Joe Lovano, Romero Lubambo and Mulgrew Miller. “In fact, I played on that same song, ‘Essa Mulher.’ It’s about a woman going through her day and all the different roles she plays: mother, maid, organizer, cook, lover. It’s a beautiful song with a very original melody.”
Guitarist Pinheiro, a native of São Paulo who now lives in New York, met Rosnes for the first time at the session, although he knew her work with Ron Carter and Artemis. He was impressed by her feel for Brazilian music.
“She is a consummate and spectacular jazz musician,” he said via Zoom, “but Brazilian music is different. And it’s not just the ‘time feel,’ like many people think. It’s not just the eighth notes. It’s way deeper than that. It’s a way of approaching the harmony. … It’s not based on ‘two-fives’ and ‘functional harmony.’ You can’t analyze it like a jazz musician.
“And Renee was perfect. Her approach to the songs was all about the melody, the vibe, the atmosphere. … As soon as we finished the recording, Patitucci and Chris Potter came to me, and they said, ‘Man, this is really special.’ All of them could feel it.”
Rosnes offers abundant praise for her collaborators. “I hadn’t worked with Chico before this album, but I was a fan; he’s a great player, composer and singer. He has a very positive energy about him. He has a wonderful flow to his playing. He’s all about the music.”
Boccato, Patitucci and Cruz had played together before. “Rogerio is very empathetic and creative,” she said. “We all know John’s a virtuoso. He’s also a lover of Brazilian music, having worked with numerous Brazilian musicians. Like all my favorite players, he has the ability to go anywhere musically. He has huge ears.
“This was my first time playing with Adam [Cruz]. He and John had done a lot of playing together. It was important to have a rhythm section that was comfortable playing together. Adam was just perfect, giving the music just what it needs.
“I absolutely love playing with Chris Potter. He’s so popular because of his interpretative skills. He’s also a lover of Brazilian music. And Steve Davis’ round, burnished tone and flowing lyricism were a perfect match for the music. He added another layer of depth to the songs.”
The one non-jazz musician on the album, flutist Shelley Brown from Toronto, nonetheless plays a crucial role. “Shelley is one of my oldest friends,” Rosnes said. “She’s a lover of jazz.” While Brown doesn’t improvise on the record, her playing is exceptional. “‘Frevo’ is not easy to play, and she nailed it.”
“And Maucha — her voice is so poetic; it has such an original sound, a beautiful vulnerability. I did my homework and knew what the lyrics were about, but even if you don’t know the language, you can tell she’s a gifted storyteller. There were moments when she would comment, ‘Oh, Jobim would do this here. …’ Learning from a person who was close to the composer, that’s a treasure.”
Rosnes was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in Vancouver, where she studied classical piano, sang in a vocal group and played jazz piano at local clubs while still in her teens. She attended the University of Toronto as a classical performance major. In 1985, on a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, she came to New York to study and live for a year. “After a year, I realized I wasn’t ready to leave. Musically, I felt like I was growing. I was ecstatic to be in a scene with so many musicians in my age group and of like mind.”
Her first steady gig was at the late-night jam session at the Blue Note, run at the time by trumpeter Ted Curson. “It was great because I got to hear all the artists who were performing there before I played, so it was a nice perk.”
Word was spreading about a young female Canadian pianist who was tearing it up. Charlap recalled hearing her before they ever met. At the time, he was still getting established as a jazz pianist and was taken under the wing of the Canadian drummer Terry Clarke, with whom he played in the Joe Roccisano Orchestra.
“Terry’s saying to me, ‘Man, you’ve got to hear Renee Rosnes,’” Charlap recalled in a separate Zoom interview from their home. “She was a new pianist in town, and I’m very young and filled with vim and vigor, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Yeah, yeah, sure, you’re excited about her, but who’s that?’ you know?
“Then the first time I heard her was at the Blue Note after hours. And she sounded like an angel. I knew it was, like … ‘Oh, buddy!’ She was so advanced. I could hear she was on a totally different level, both from where my playing was at and [from other pianists]. It was like, OK, she’s a master — listen up, kid!”
A week later he heard her playing at the Village Gate in a group with a horn player. “They were playing ‘If I Were A Bell.’ And I remember just being rapt, and saying, ‘Oh, what a perfect pianist. Magnificent!’ She’s got everything — beautiful time, gorgeous line, beautiful touch, great harmony. She plays for the group. It’s totally humble. There’s no showing off, yet her mastery shines through all the way.”
Despite leading Artemis and being a renowned solo artist, Rosnes remains a member of Ron Carter’s Foursight Quartet, now going on 12 years.
“I treasure the experience of playing with one of the greatest masters of the bass,” she said. “When Ron is the leader, he’s guiding the band musically at all times, even when somebody is soloing. I still find it to be a valuable experience being a sideman. I’m always going to be learning something. And I think we have a beautiful musical rapport.”
Carter recalled the night he decided to hire Rosnes. Pianist Stephen Scott had just left his quartet, and he needed a replacement. “I heard Irene playing a couple of sets with Joe Henderson’s band at Fat Tuesday’s. She could follow where he was going and meet him at the corner. Sex didn’t matter to me; race didn’t matter.”
He praised her work ethic and her understanding of harmony. Moreover, she has the capacity to play the same set repeatedly but to find something different in the tunes every night. “Her solos are thought out. She’s a complete player — that’s why she’s in the chair, man.”
Charlap and Rosnes love to play two-piano duets and do so whenever it’s possible to arrange a gig with two Steinways — but it doesn’t happen as often as they would like. Their duet album, Double Portrait (Blue Note), came out in 2010. They also played together on four tracks accompanying Tony Bennett on his 2015 album The Silver Lining: The Songs Of Jerome Kern.
“We very happily hear the beat in the same place, which makes it easy to play together,” Rosnes said. “Playing duo with Bill is just so much fun: He obviously has such a gorgeous touch. It’s not a competition in any way. It’s all in service of the music, what can we do to make the piece shine.”
Speaking of their unique marriage, Charlap said, “Even in an intimate relationship there is mystery. She’s also one of the most empathetic players on the scene. When she came to New York, she made it right away. You have to be an extraordinary musician to play with Joe Henderson and have him say, ‘Yes, that’s what I want in my pianist.’ Then Wayne Shorter. These are not just gigs. They are people who hired her to be in their bands.”
“There’s something else about her,” Charlap added. “Renee is a profound listener; she hears everything. It’s what I call perfect hearing. It’s beyond perfect pitch. No matter how harmonically dense or simple it is, Renee instantly knows every single note from the top to the bottom. No matter how large the ensemble. It seems impossible.
“But she’s Canadian — she’ll never brag to you about something like this.”
With all her talents and skills, her intuition and depth of feeling, Rosnes took a brief hiatus from composing to concentrate on the work of other composers, Brazilian ones. Why?
Charlap suggests an answer:
“Renee is a true composer who writes with great meaning. And, you know, a real composer can recognize a real composer. Sir Richard Rodney Bennett is probably the greatest musician that I ever knew. He was one of my best friends, and he was a giant, a student of Boulez, a major composer.
“And I remember he heard a piece of Renee’s. And he said something right away. He said, ‘Now that’s a pianist.’ First of all, about her piano playing. Then he said, ‘That’s a composer.’
“He knew the depth of the melodic line, the depth of her ability to intuit form and structure, the nuanced, emotional and spiritual areas that she is able to mirror and explore within 12 notes that are just notes. But she’s able to say something with those 12 notes that’s way beyond the cerebral.”
Rosnes had long since recognized the value of these Brazilian composers and their works.
“Again,” Charlap said, “a real composer can recognize a real composer.” DB
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