OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With Canada-Land's Own Ranee Lee!

Greetings music prostitots, and welcome to another edition of Manor Music Monday, today with an added squirt of maple syrup. "Why?" you enquire. DJ Li'l Scratch will happily provide the answer tonight at the Manor's "Pickle Gobbler After-Hours Musique and Mani-Pedi Lounge," where he'll be getting his claws did and playing hot tunes by Canada-Land's hottest jazz vocalist. Canada, as you know, has many wonderful singers, like Joni Mitchell, and many we'd like to return-to-sender, like The Biebs, but few croon jazz as well or as famously as our lady below. Her career spans fifty years, and she's not only a celebrated singer, but a consummate musician and composer. 

Stand back, ya'll, Ranee Lee is in the house. And she's no ordinary jazz diva. Born in Brooklyn, where she sang in high school and toured with several jazz bands, she later made Canada her permanent home - Montreal, to be exact - and first toured not as a singer, but as a successful jazz drummer and saxophonist.

That's where she fell under the spell of Billie Holiday while portraying her in the one-woman play, "Lady Day At The Bar And Grill," originating the role to universal acclaim at the Festival de Jazz de Montreal in 1988 (the play later hit Broadway starring the ubiquitous Audra McDonald). She even won the Dora Mavor Award (Canada's equivalent to the Tony Award) for Best Actress when the show transferred to Toronto. 

Didn't happen to catch her performance? Then today's your lucky day, because soon after, she released her album, "Deep Song: A Tribute To Billie Holiday." Does she sound like Holiday? Of course not, and I wouldn't want her to, either. What she does do is twofold; she captures the heartache of Holiday, but with a silky, reflective tone, as if looking back on all of Holiday's highs and lows with both joy and remorse. It's a gorgeous album. Give a listen to her performance of "Them There Eyes" and you'll know you're hearing a singular performer.

By the way, Ranee is very much an active singer. If you happen to be in Montreal on July 3rd, catch her in one of two shows (or both) at the "Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill." How I wish I could be there. 

You can listen to the rest of Ranee's album RIGHT HERE!

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Justin Time Records