Why René Marie Can't Keep from Singing

"I don't like being bored while I'm singing," laughs René Marie.

The Virginia-based vocalist and MAXJAZZ recording artist is explaining why she sings jazz. "You don't know what somebody's going to say, musically, or what somebody's going to do. If you go to a rock concert or pop, they want to hear the song exactly like it is on the radio. But a jazz audience is looking to hear it done a different way and I like that."

The feeling appears to be mutual. René Marie made her national debut last May with the release of How Can I Keep from Singing? on the MAXJAZZ label. The album reached #1 on the Gavin Jazz Chart and prompted a stream of critical accolades. Marie has found herself singing for audiences all over the country and seems genuinely surprised by the positive response. "I am shocked that the CD has been so well received."

That reception may be attributed in part to the fact that René Marie refuses to conform to any of the preset expectations people have for jazz singers. She embraces the jazz vocal tradition without ever allowing it to confine her. "The voice is so flexible," Marie explains. "You can do anything just about. I don't think it should be limited." Marie's voice is a warm, supple and smooth instrument that seems to draw on a deep reservoir of inner strength. Blessed with excellent pitch and a superb rhythmic sense, she displays the same effortless command of her talent that distinguished her primary influences, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Marie's singing does not have a trace of the self-consciousness that mars the work of some singers. "I'm not tied to intellectualizing what I'm doing. I'm basing it on how I feel at the time and what the band is doing."

The band is very important to Marie. "I don't feel comfortable separating myself from the musicians. I feel like I'm along with them not out front away from them." For René Marie, jazz is about collaboration. "I'm really tuned into the group. I listen to them and," she adds with a chuckle, "I appreciate it if they listen to me."

Marie's unaffected modesty in conversation seems at odds with the sheer authority of her singing. But then, that authority is somewhat surprising given that she has only been singing jazz for about five years. More than the title of her CD, How Can I Keep from Singing? describes René Marie's unusual journey onto the national jazz stage.

René grew up surrounded by music from an early age. "One of my earliest memories that I have as a girl is of my father playing Ravel's 'Boléro' on the record player." Her father also loved Bluegrass and Harry Belafonte. Like the rest of her generation, René listened to the Beatles, the Supremes and Peter, Paul & Mary. She studied piano for several years and, as a teenager, sang with a couple of local R&B groups. "Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a singer," she explains, "but I don't remember ever listening to jazz." That changed with the release of the Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues. "I was just dumbfounded with the lyrics and the music. It touched me deeply."

Marriage at age 18 followed by motherhood detoured her plans for a singing career, but she did not abandon her love of music. "I did a lot of writing. I wrote lots of lullabies." Her newfound passion for jazz also led her to the music of Ella Fitzgerald. "The clarity of her voice. The innocent yearning of her ballads." Marie's enthusiasm and affection for Fitzgerald are readily apparent. "With Ella's scatting, I could feel my heart pounding and racing. I couldn't believe how excited I got."

Music remained a private passion until 1996 when her son dragged René to a local restaurant to hear a singer. He told her, "You can sing better than her, I know you can." René recalls looking at her son and telling him in an excited voice, "Michael, I think you're right, I think... I know I can sing better than that." René and her sister-in-law, a pianist, worked up six tunes and went back to the same restaurant the following month. They asked to play during the break. "I must have been out of my mind," René laughs, "but the audience was quiet and listening and the applause was really good."

René started sitting in with local musicians. "I didn't know how to hold a microphone. I didn't know anything about a sound system. I didn't know I had to tell the band a key." She admits that, in the beginning, she imitated Ella and Sarah. "I listened to their stuff so much and memorized their phrasing, their breathing, their scatting. Then I got bored." Instead of just mimicking her idols, she began to learn from them. She also began listening closely to the voices of different instruments. She developed an approach to lyrics and scatting that incorporated the rhythmic accents of a drummer. She also allowed herself the freedom to improvise and take chances on a par with what the instrumentalists were doing around her.

She became a popular attraction in the Richmond, Virginia area. Under her married name, René Croan, she produced her own CD, Renaissance. However, it proved to be a difficult period. Her marriage of 23 years ended badly. "I had never been on my own. It was a real struggle emotionally." She continued to work fulltime at a bank while traveling to gigs several hours away at night. Looking back, she says the experience improved her singing. "Pain makes everything clarified. It separates things."

The turning point came in December 1998. With the encouragement and financial support of her mother and six siblings, René decided to concentrate on music fulltime. "My last day of work, as I was walking out of the door, I remember being so scared, but I had this giddy feeling like I had been cut loose and was flying up in the sky." Thirteen months later René Marie found herself in a New York City recording studio working with nationally known musicians like Mulgrew Miller and Gerald Cleaver under the supervision of producer Bruce Barth.

The resulting album, How Can I Keep from Singing?, is the work of a singer who has learned to trust her own instincts. Marie seems to delight in bringing a fresh perspective to familiar or unexpected material. Take, for example, her version of "The Tennessee Waltz." "I always thought the words to that song were really nothing but the Blues," she explains. "So I put some grease and fat back up in there." Her pairing of the spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and Nina Simone's "Four Women" is more personal. "Those lyrics speak to our history so much. I believe in my lineage all four of those women exist. It is not a stretch at all for me to say I'm Sweet Thing or I'm Safranga. I think that is probably the case for most black women. They know [all four women] or they are them. My strongest connection is with Aunt Sarah."

The CD also contains three examples of Marie's impressive talent for songwriting. The yearning "Hurry Sundown," with its lovely bridge, the sexy "Take My Breath Away" and the lively "I Like You" are smart, well crafted tunes. Before the recording session Marie was concerned about how the musicians would react to her songs. "What if Mulgrew said," she adopts a voice of mock disdain, "who wrote that!" However, she had nothing to worry about. As she stood in the vocal booth, she could see the musicians smiling as they played her songs. She remembers thinking, "I can't believe these guys are smiling about music that I wrote." "That," she says happily, "was a good feeling."

René Marie has not lost her love for the great standards that brought her to jazz in the first place. Yet, she doesn't feel limited to that repertoire. "I like incorporating music from other cultures into jazz, not just American music. It's like eating. You like sweet and salty. Soft and crunchy. Sometimes mixed in all together. Anything that makes me think, peaks my interest or perks up my ear." When asked about the state of jazz singing, she defers by saying, "I'm still learning about myself and how I feel about my own singing." But asked what could be done to increase interest in jazz, she is emphatic. "Take your kids to live music. Don't let them think that real music has to sound to like that produced stuff on the radio. It's not. It's nothing like that."

Marie's own live performances this year will take her from the Blue Note in New York to the Plush Room in San Francisco and a number of points in between. She will also be traveling to Europe for her first overseas performances. Next month she returns to the studio to record a new CD for release this summer. The new album will feature five original tunes and, undoubtedly, some surprises as well.

René Marie is optimistic about the future. "It feels good. It really feels good. I've got a lot of energy and I'm raring to go." Asked if she has any goals for her career, she pauses thoughtfully. "My goal is to avoid being in a niche," she says firmly. "I don't ever want to sound like a cliché."

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