Bio:
Renee Rosnes is one of the premier jazz pianists and composers of her generation. Upon moving to New York City from Vancouver, Canada, she quickly established a reputation of high regard, touring and recording with such masters as Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, J.J. Johnson, James Moody, and legendary bassist Ron Carter. She was a charter member of the all-star ensemble, the SFJAZZ Collective, with whom she toured for six years.
Ms. Rosnes has released 17 recordings, and has appeared on many others as a sideman. In 2016, Written in the Rocks (Smoke Sessions) was named one of ten Best Jazz Albums of the Year by The Chicago Tribune, one of the Best Albums in all genres of music by The Nation, and was awarded a 2017 Canadian Juno (her fifth Juno award). JazzTimes wrote, “Ms. Rosnes delivers conceptual heft, suspenseful compositions and mesmerizing performances,” and DownBeat praised it as “an exceptional achievement” stating “Rosnes is a virtuoso composer.” The band’s most recent session, Beloved of the Sky (2018) draws inspiration for the title track from Canadian painter Emily Carr, and features master musicians Chris Potter, Steve Nelson, Peter Washington and Lenny White.
Renee has produced concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Renee is also the music director for ARTEMIS, a new all-star international band featuring the vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, clarinetist Anat Cohen, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Allison Miller.
Over her 30 year career, Rosnes has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, from established masters such as Jack DeJohnette and tabla master Zakir Hussain, to younger giants such as Christian McBride, Chris Potter, Nicholas Payton and Melissa Aldana. She is a formidable composer and in 2003 was named SOCAN’s Composer of the Year. Her works have been performed and recorded by Phil Woods, JJ Johnson, Lewis Nash, Joe Locke, the Danish Radio Big Band, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, and trombonist Michael Dease.
From 2008-2010, Rosnes enjoyed her role as host of The Jazz Profiles, an interview series produced by CBC-Radio. Also in the role of jazz journalist, Renee has contributed two major cover story interviews for JazzTimes magazine, one with Wayne Shorter and his quartet (April 2013) and the other with the late pianist Geri Allen (September 2013).
Aside from her work as a leader, Rosnes is currently a member of bassist Ron Carter’s Quartet, and often performs with her husband, acclaimed pianist Bill Charlap. The couple released Double Portrait (Blue Note) of which Downbeat wrote: “The counterpoint and compatibilities are so perfectly balanced, the selections and arrangements so handsome, that ‘Double Portrait’ is a prize.” The piano duo was also featured on four tracks from the 2016 Grammy award winning album, Tony Bennett & Bill Charlap: The Silver Lining, The Songs of Jerome Kern.
Management/Booking:
Bookings
The Bill Charlap/ Renee Rosnes Duo
ARTEMIS
featuring Renee Rosnes, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Anat Cohen,
Ingrid Jensen, Melissa Aldana, Noriko Ueda, Allison Miller
Jack Randall
President of The Kurland Agency [email protected]
Tel: +1.617.254.0007
Domestic Fax: +1.617.782.3577
International Fax: +1.617.782.3524
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“She clearly has the world at her own fingertips.”
The Village Voice
“The instrument was scarcely large enough to contain her imagination.”
The Globe and Mail
“If you looked closely, you would have sworn you saw steam rising from the piano at the Village Vanguard.”
The New York Sun
“Rosnes and company produce glorious, soulful and deep modern jazz that is firmly rooted in the tradition while showcasing a truly inspired original voice.”
The Times Colonist
“No rhythmic inflection went unexplored, harmonies within a tune kept changing, and the formal elements were simply signposts for the soloists…she’s a virtuoso, but a quiet one.”
New York Times
“Rosnes offers exquisite balances of delicacy and power, witty and weighted ideas, assertiveness and deference.”
Downbeat
“It was one of the more exciting entries any band had made at this festival, and the momentum never sagged for the rest of the concert.”
The Montreal Gazette
“Life On Earth is an important album, not just for Rosnes, but for jazz as a whole. With this recording, she makes a persuasive case for the music’s capacity to interface in meaningful creative fashion with elements of other musical cultures. Life On Earth is a musical mosaic shimmering with dazzling combinations of sound and rhythm on virtually every track.”
Los Angeles Times
“Rosnes is her own woman. An extended solo on the quartet’s opening night was breathtaking, both in concept and execution.”
San Francisco Examiner
“Rosnes combines a muscular forthright style with an awesome ability to navigate complex shoals of far-out freewheeling improvisations: a paradoxical amalgam of passion and precision.”
Winnipeg Sun
“Rosnes has carved out for herself a reputation as one of jazz’s new bright lights. She has impressed veterans of the bebop and free jazz wars with a crisp, uncluttered approach to improvisation that respects, but doesn’t genuflect to, the music of the past. Her exposure to a variety of artists has prodded her to develop a clear voice all her own.”
The Boston Globe
“An absolutely stunning achievement. Rosnes has grown and matured into one of the finest pianists in jazz. Her playing is inventive, complex and always illuminating.”
The Jazz Report
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).