Article content There aren’t enough superlatives for Ranee Lee. Apart from being one of the continent’s greatest jazz singers, Lee is simply a force of nature, exuding such grace and class and charm on or off any stage. No diva is she.
Lee has been belting the blues and jazz for 65 years. That’s not a typo. Seemingly ageless at 81 — although she could pass for at least a decade younger — Lee still doesn’t miss a beat.
And it’s highly unlikely that Lee will when she reprises one of her greatest roles, taking on the icon that was Billie Holiday in the timeless classic Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Backed by four musicians, Lee begins her run Friday and performs again Saturday, June 7 and 8 at Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill. Lee starred in the first Canadian production of Lady Day, which played for a year in Toronto in 1988.
She last performed the show in Montreal 30 years ago at the Centaur Theatre. Her subsequent rendering of the stirring Holiday tune Deep Song — featuring another hometown treasure, pianist Oliver Jones — brought Lee acclaim well beyond our borders. Brooklyn-born Lee has made Montreal her home for the last 50 years.
She has cut 13 albums for Montreal’s Justin Time jazz label. Accolades? Although reluctant to dwell on them, she has accrued a mantel’s worth and then some: among them, the Order of Canada, a Dora Mavor Moore acting award for Lady Day, top Canadian female jazz vocalist award by Jazz Report magazine, and the Juno for vocal ja.
