Renee is now part of the SF Jazz Collective
also with Joshua Redman, Nicholas Payton, Bobby Hutcherson and others

The extraordinary pianist and composer Renee Rosnes clearly enjoys the challenge and freedom of playing jazz in numerous formats. Her eight previous Blue Note recordings featured her, brilliantly, in smaller ensembles. Now, on her ninth Blue Note release, Renee Rosnes and the Danish Radio Big Band, Rosnes mines the experience gained during her impressive tenures with both the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band and The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Renee Rosnes and the Danish Radio Big Band puts her in the spotlight with the revered Copenhagen ensemble, and reveals her capacity to shine within a jazz orchestra context.

Replete with the phenomenal solos and fluid, yet soulful, virtuosity that distinguish her live performances and previous recordings, Renee Rosnes and the Danish Radio Big Band is her first large ensemble recording featuring her music. It showcases her impressive clarity and range while transmitting a remarkably intimate jazz feel despite the 20-piece orchestra format.

Established in 1964, the Danish Radio Big Band (DRBB) has become synonymous with live jazz magic. From 1998 until January 2003, pianist Jim McNeely served as the DRBB’s chief conductor. He has worked with Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Mel Lewis, and co-led the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra in NYC, and first became acquainted with Rosnes in the ‘80s when she studied with him. In March 2001, the two pianists renewed their creative friendship in Copenhagen when she performed with the DRBB under his baton: the resulting chemistry sparked the decision to record together in December 2001.

“I was very excited to work with such skilled arrangers as Jim [McNeely] and Mike [Mossman]. Jim has a unique approach, from a learning standpoint, and I was impressed with what they did with the sketches I gave them,” says Rosnes, who selected all of the pieces recorded here.

“Big band writing is a skill unto itself,” she continues. “I developed some pieces specifically for this project, and chose others from my book because I wanted to hear them arranged for larger orchestra.” Five of the eight tunes are Rosnes originals, including “Orion’s Belt,” originally commissioned by Jon Faddis for the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. “I began unraveling the mysteries of writing and arranging for big band about 1996. Few have their first arrangements performed at such a lofty hall,” she laughs, “so there was a lot of impetus to get it right. It was a lot of fun reworking it with Jim in Copenhagen.” In addition to “Orion’s Belt,“ and the energetic “Black Holes” (from her 1997 As We Are Now recording), McNeely arranged the lushly evocative “Quiet Earth” (recorded on Rosnes’ Life on Earth). “Back then, I gave it a trio with string quartet treatment,” she comments, “and it was fascinating to hear Jim translate the string orchestrations into horns.”

Michael Mossman’s arrangements grace Rosnes’ “Ancestors” (recorded for her 1995 album of the same title) and “Bulldog’s Chicken Run” (from As We Are Now). Rosnes penned all featured interludes, and Mossman, a talented trumpeter who played with Rosnes in the hard bop Blue Note band, Out of the Blue, orchestrated the pieces.

As conductor, McNeely “just lets the guys play,” says Rosnes. “We had no worry about how long the tunes would be. Jim lets pieces breath, lets the musicians say what they want, which gives more of a feeling of a live performance.” Rosnes freely admits McNeely’s composition, “In This Moment,” is her favorite on the disc. “I love the meditative mood of it,” she says.

There’s a Latin tinge to Vincent Nilsson’s arrangement of “Lament,” the well-known composition by master trombonist J.J. Johnson, with whom Rosnes performed for a decade. She arranged the traditional English melody “Early One Morning” in homage to childhood memories.

Rosnes grew up in Vancouver and began formal piano studies at age three, followed by violin lessons two years later. Her evident talents and love for music led her to the University of Toronto, where she was a Classical Performance student, and to on-the-job training on the Vancouver club circuit before she came to NYC in 1986 on a grant from the Canada Council of the Arts. Rosnes was soon tapped for a series of high-profile gigs with jazz masters such as Johnson, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, James Moody and others. Since her Blue Note debut in 1989, guests on subsequent releases reveal a veritable pantheon of jazz greats, including Herbie Hancock, Shorter, Henderson, Branford Marsalis, Chris Potter, Nicholas Payton, Jack DeJohnette and Christian McBride. She has earned three Junos (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Award) and two Jazz Report awards for Best Jazz Album for earlier Blue Note releases.

Her rise to a leadership role among the up-and-coming jazz generation was recently acknowledged with an invitation to become a founding member of the San Francisco Modern JAZZ Collective, an all-star resident jazz ensemble led by saxophonist Joshua Redman. The new ensemble, which was launched in 2004, represents an array of generations, styles and cultures, including vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. In 2006, they will San Francisco Modern Jazz Collective will debut their New York appearance at Jazz at Lincoln Center.