Jazz musician Renee Rosnes. (Hill Peppard/Blue Note)
When Renee Rosnes and Bill Charlap got married in August, the New Yorker magazine crowned the two pianists a “jazz world royal couple.” The distinction is not without merit. The son of Broadway composer Moose Charlap and Benny Goodman singer Sandy Stewart, the 41-year-old Charlap is a much-loved interpreter of the Great American Songbook. The 45-year-old Renee (pronounced Ree-knee) learned jazz by transcribing Oscar Peterson records as a child in Vancouver. In the ‘90s, fellow west coaster Diana Krall claimed Rosnes as her greatest influence.
For the uninitiated, Charlap is an impeccably swinging traditionalist, whereas The Independent once called Rosnes “the Muhammad Ali of modern jazz piano — floating, stinging and floating again, with a touch that’s tender as a kiss and just as dangerous.” Just how this royal couple gets along onstage, given their stylistic differences, is a mystery that will be answered Oct. 16, when the newlyweds perform a benefit concert for the music program at Hamilton’s Mohawk College. CBCNews.ca recently spoke to Rosnes about her life and career.
Q: Your wedding was held at a New York nightclub, Dizzy’s Coca Cola. Can we presume it was a musical affair?
A: Of course. Freddy Cole, Nat King Cole’s brother, performed. So did Harry Allen, along with the Trio da Paz, a Brazilian band. Bill and I played, and his mother, Sandy, sang some songs. It was wonderful.
Q: It’s appropriate that a woman born in Regina — the Queen City — should be a jazz monarch. When did you start playing piano?
A: Well, I moved from Regina when I was very young. My adoptive parents brought me to Vancouver. I have no memory of not being able to play piano. Apparently, my sisters played and I wanted to be like them, so I climbed up on the piano stool. It was never work.
Q: Were you interested in jazz as a kid?
A: I learned Elton John songs off the radio; that’s the music I played for friends. I was introduced to jazz by Bob Rebagliati at Hamilton Junior High in Vancouver.
Q: Is it true he gave you an Oscar Peterson album to transcribe? That must have been like counting raindrops in a storm.
A: [Laughs.] The album was Oscar Peterson and the Soul Singers, and the song was Catherine. I’m blessed with perfect pitch, so I could copy all those notes, but I couldn’t grasp his sense of rhythm. Reb also gave me albums by Count Basie, Horace Silver and Herbie Hancock. I knew right away jazz wasn’t one music — it was a universe.
Q: When did you know you wanted to be a jazz musician?
A: Not until I moved to Toronto in the early 80s to study music at the University of Toronto did I understand I had to play jazz.
Q: You moved back to Vancouver and played jazz in clubs there. Your first brush with the jazz heavyweights must have given you an idea of the challenge ahead.
(Video Arts Music)
A: Wynton Marsalis’s band came to a club I was playing. They liked what I was doing and eventually brought Wynton. I mentioned I was going to New York on a Canada Council Grant in 1985. He said, “Don’t bother, you’ll never make it.” I laughed. I mean, he was my age, 22. But I didn’t care, because I wasn’t going to New York to make it big in jazz. I assumed I’d return to Canada. Ten years later, Wynton had me on a show he does for NPR and said, “Remember how I was a jerk to you when we first met?” I said, “Mm-hmn.”
Q: A New York DJ once called Canada the land of jazz pianists. He mentioned Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones and Paul Bley from Montreal. He talked about you and Diana Krall, from Vancouver, then Ottawa’s D.D. Jackson. Do we specialize in jazz pianists?
A: Speaking as a fan of Canadian jazz, I have to say that isn’t true. Look at Kenny Wheeler and Ingrid Jensen, two great trumpet players. Look at Moe Koffman, Jane Bunnett, the list goes on ... I love coming back to Canada to play with bassist Neil Swainson and drummer Terry Clarke. We played in a Canadian band, Free Trade, in the 90s. I played an Alberta and Ottawa jazz festival with those guys this summer.
Having said that, there is a Canadian piano jazz tradition, and I’m not surprised a New Yorker picked up on it, because it involves going to New York to make it in a very competitive scene. That’s what Oscar Peterson and Paul Bley did, same with D.D. and myself.
Q: How hard was New York? You played with some of the jazz lions when you arrived: Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard. There is this YouTube video of you with Hubbard in the 80s, and he looks as mean as a toothache, glaring at his musicians.
A: [Laughs.] That was an all-star band. The bass player played the wrong chord changes. Freddie glared at me. I was a girl. It had to be me, right? I never worried about prejudice, though. I knew I could play. That night wasn’t typical of my experience. Great jazz musicians are receptive to young talent. They like being around good musicians, that’s why they came to New York. I feel lucky to have arrived when there were so many great musicians and clubs hiring kids. It’s not that way anymore, sadly.
Q: Your two-decade career is an interesting reflection on your life. Your biological parents are Indian, and you grew up in a Norwegian-Canadian family. As an artist, you’ve played with a Scandinavian orchestra (Renee Rosnes and the Danish Big Band) and explored your Indian roots with songs on the albums Ancestors and Life on Earth. Do you think your life and music reflect your Canadian-ness?
A: Hmn, all I can say is that I’m a proud Canadian and my music is rooted in my experience. I lost my adoptive mother and found my biological mother the same year [1994]. That had a profound effect on me. Some of the songs I wrote during that period reflect that: Ancestors, The Ache of Absence and The Land of Five Rivers, which is about the Punjab province of India, where I’m from.
Q: Diana Krall called you her biggest influence, because you proved that what she wanted to do could be done. Did she ever come to you for support or advice?
A: Really? Our high school music teachers in Vancouver are good friends. I see [Diana] at functions, but we’re not the closest of friends. Given all her success, she clearly didn’t need my advice. But, you know … I’m proud of her.
Q: The New Yorker bit on your marriage mentioned you and Bill Charlap are very different kind of jazz pianists.
Jazz pianist Bill Charlap. (Donald Dietz/Blue Note)
A: We’re jazz piano players, which means we play a variety of ways. I play with Bill at home and he can do anything. He can play outside [the chord changes]. He’s played with everyone from Tony Bennett to Steely Dan.
A: Jazz is improvisational music. You’re free to explore the world!
A: That’s right. In Hamilton, by the way, Bill and I will play a lot of different things: Some Wayne Shorter, some Benny Golson, some standards and originals — our musical world.
A: [Laughs.] You know, we didn’t have one. But we do now: For Once in My Life.
Renee Rosnes and Bill Charlap play the McIntyre Theatre at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ont. on Oct. 16.
Stephen Cole is a writer based in Toronto.
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