Introduction
Ranee Lee, CM (born 1942 in Brooklyn, New York City) is a Canadian jazz vocalist and musician who resides in Montreal, Quebec. She is also an actor, author, educator and television host.
Biography
Born in Brooklyn, Lee moved to Montreal at the age of 18 in 1970. She toured North America in the 1970s as a jazz drummer and tenor saxophonist. She subsequently landed a starring role playing Billie Holiday in Lady Day, and won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance. She subsequently began recording as a vocalist, releasing her first album Live At The Bijou in 1984.
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.
Her music appears in the animated short film Black Soul (2002).
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.
Honors and awards
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. She won a 2010 Juno Award for her album Ranee Lee - Lives Upstairs.
Discography
- Live at the Bijou (1984)
- Deep Song (1989)
- The Musicals: Jazz on Broadway (1992)
- I Thought About You (1994)
- You Must Believe in Swing (1996)
- Seasons of Love (1997)
- Dark Divas (2000)
- Maple Groove (2004)
- Just You, Just Me (2005)
- Ranee Lee - Lives Upstairs (2009)
Contributions
- Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen (2003) - "The Man That Got Away", "Stormy Weather"