Renee Rosnes | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | Irene Louise Rosnes 24 March 1962 Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada |
| Genre | Jazz |
| Occupations | pianist, composer, arranger |
| Instrument | Piano |
| Years active | c. 1985–present |
| Labels | Blue Note, Smoke Sessions |
| Member of | Artemis |
| Website | reneerosnes |
Irene Louise Rosnes (born 24 March 1962), known professionally as Renee Rosnes (/ˈriːni ˈrɒsnɛs/ REE-nee ROSS-ness), is a Canadian jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Rosnes was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, to birth parents of Punjabi origin. She was subsequently adopted, and grew up in North Vancouver, British Columbia. She was three when she began taking classical piano lessons. She attended Handsworth Secondary School, and became interested in jazz music there, introduced to it by the school's band director, Bob Rebagliati.
She went on to the University of Toronto, and studied classical performance with pianist William Aide. In 1985, Rosnes was awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant, and moved to New York City to continue her studies.
Shortly after arriving in New York, Rosnes became the pianist for the Blue Note Records label band, Out of the Blue, and recorded the 1989 album "Spiral Staircase" with the band. After tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson hired her to play with his quartet in 1986, Rosnes began an international career. In 1988, she was a member of the Wayne Shorter Band and in 1989, she joined trombonist J. J. Johnson's Quintet and remained his pianist of choice until he retired in 1997. In 1989, she also began working with tenor saxophonist James Moody and was the pianist in his quartet for the next 20 years. Rosnes frequently performed with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, and recorded For Sentimental Reasons with his quartet in 2007. She was a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective, and played with the octet from 2004 through 2009. Since 2011, she has been a member of bassist Ron Carter's Foursight Band, which tours frequently in Europe.
In 2023, Rosnes won her seventh Canadian Juno Award for Solo Jazz Album of the Year for Kinds of Love Smoke Sessions Records, recorded with Chris Potter on tenor, soprano saxes and flute, Christian McBride on bass, and Carl Allen on drums and Rogerio Boccato on percussion. She made four Japanese trio recordings for the VideoArts label with The Drummonds with ex-husband Billy Drummond and the unrelated Ray Drummond on bass. She married jazz pianist Bill Charlap on 25 August 2007, and the couple released a piano duet recording titled Double Portrait (Blue Note).
Rosnes was the host of Jazz Profiles, a CBC Radio show in which she profiled Canadian jazz musicians. Guests included pianists Paul Bley, Joe Sealy and Oliver Jones, bassists Don Thompson and Michel Donato, trumpeters Guido Basso and Kenny Wheeler, and drummer Terry Clarke. With producer Kelly Peterson Rosnes is a co-founder of the Canadian Jazz Master Awards and was the artistic director of the Oscar Peterson International Jazz Festival, which took place in Ontario, Canada. Rosnes is the founder, pianist and musical director of the all-female quintet Artemis. The other members are Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), Nicole Glover (tenor sax), Noriko Ueda (bass), Allison Miller (drums). The group signed with the Blue Note label, and their eponymously titled debut album was released on 11 September 2020. Artemis has been voted Jazz Group of the Year for three consecutive years by Downbeat magazine’s Annual Readers Poll (2023-2025) and was awarded Mid-Size Ensemble of the Year in 2024 and 2025 by the Jazz Journalists Association.
Free Trade
With Neil Swainson, Peter Leitch, Ralph Bowen, Terry Clarke
The Drummonds
With Ray Drummond and Billy Drummond
With Ron Carter
With Todd Coolman
With Michael Dease
With Billy Drummond
With Jon Faddis
With Jimmy Greene
With Joe Henderson
With J. J. Johnson
With Marian McPartland
With Jimmy Scott
With Gary Thomas
With Walt Weiskopf
With Gerald Wilson
With Dave Young
With others
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