CHICAGO – On Friday, October 21st, 2016, at 7:30 PM, vocalists Freddy Cole and René Marie open the
University of Chicago Presents’ 2016/17 Jazz at the Logan Series at the Reva and David Logan
Center for the Arts.
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| René Marie |
A Chicago native and jazz legend, Freddy Cole is considered one of the most maturely expressive jazz
singers of his generation (The New York Times). He is a three-time Grammy nominee and was inducted into
the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2007.
René Marie has earned numerous awards and accolades for her performances and recordings since
beginning her professional performing career at age 42. Her 2013 album I Wanna Be Evil: With Love to
Eartha Kitt was nominated for a Grammy Award (Best Jazz Vocal Album) and her album Sound of Red
was released in April 2016 on Motéma.
Here the two jazz all-stars come together for their first collaboration, He Said/She Said. In the tradition of
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, the classic Freddy Cole and the bold René Marie offer interpretations
of their favorite songs from some of the best known signature vocal duos of all time.
Julie and Parker Hall Annual Jazz Concert
FREDDY COLE AND RENÉ MARIE
He Said/She Said
Freddy Cole and René Marie, vocals; Randy Napoleon, guitar; John Chin, piano; Elias Bailey, bass; Quentin
Baxter, drums
Jazz at the Logan is generously supported by the Julie and Parker Hall Endowment for Jazz and American Popular Music and the Reva and David Logan Foundation.
CONCERT LOCATION
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637
TICKETS
$35 / $5 all students (with I.D.)
Call 773.702.ARTS (773.702.2787) or visit tickets.uchicago.edu
BOX OFFICE
UChicago Arts Box Office, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th Street
Regular hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 12 pm – 6 pm and through concert intermission;
1 – 4 pm on concert Sundays.
Concert information online at chicagopresents.uchicago.edu
ABOUT FREDDY COLE
Lionel Frederick Cole was born the youngest of Edward and Paulina Nancy Cole’s five children. His three
elder brothers, Eddie, Ike and Nat (12 years Freddy’s senior) were all musicians taught by their mother.
Though Freddy was born in Chicago, he is now a 35-year native son and international celebrity of Atlanta.
“I started playing piano at five or six,” Freddy recalls. “Music was all around me.” In the Chicago home of
his youth, visitors included Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lionel Hampton. He also credits Billy
Eckstine as a major influence. “He was a fantastic entertainer,” Freddy recalls. “I learned so much from just
watching and being around him.” After a possible career with the NFL was shelved due to a severe football
related hand injury, he began playing and singing in Chicago clubs as a teenager. Although he was ready to
hit the road at 18, his mother intervened, and he continued his musical education at the Roosevelt Institute
in Chicago.
Freddy moved to New York in 1951, where he studied at the Juilliard School of Music and found himself
profoundly influenced by John Lewis, Oscar Peterson and Teddy Wilson. He got a Master’s degree at the
New England Conservatory of Music and then spent several months on the road as a member of Earl
Bostic’s band that also included Johnny Coles and Benny Golson.
It was back in New York that Freddy successfully laid the groundwork for a career that continues to flourish
to this day. He developed a vast repertoire of songs in Manhattan bistros and concurrently began to
supplement his live performances with television and radio commercial work.
Freddy recorded several albums for European and English companies during the 1970s that helped him
develop a loyal overseas following. Cole believes that becoming an international favorite made him “widen
my scope a little bit.” He developed a stand-up act, a better rapport with audiences, and learned to sing in
other languages. “It made me much more a performer.” A resident of Atlanta since 1972, he currently leads
a quartet on piano and vocals with guitarist Randy Napoleon, bassist Elias Bailey, and drummer Quentin
Baxter, that regularly tours the US, Europe, the Far East, South America and South Africa. Freddy has been
a recording artist since 1952, when his first single, “The Joke’s on Me,” was released on an obscure
Chicago-based label.
While there are certain unmistakable similarities in timbre to his brother Nat, his voice is raspier, smokier,
jazzier even. In truth, his phrasing is far closer to that of Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday than that of his
brother, and his timing swings even more. His vocals – suave, elegant, formidable, sometimes spoken and
articulate – make him the most respected lyrical storyteller in jazz. Cole’s career continues to ascend as he
has moved into the front ranks of America’s homegrown art form with a style and musical sophistication all
his own.
ABOUT RENÉ MARIE
In a span of two decades, 11 recordings and countless stage performances, vocalist René Marie has
cemented her reputation as not only a singer but also a composer, arranger, theatrical performer and
teacher. Guided and tempered by powerful life lessons and rooted in jazz traditions laid down by Ella
Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and other leading ladies of past generations, she borrows various elements
of folk, R&B and even classical and country to create a captivating hybrid style. Her body of work is
musical, but it’s more than just music. It’s an exploration of the bright and dark corners of the human
experience, and an affirmation of the power of the human spirit.
René was born in November 1955 into a family of seven children in Warrenton, Virginia. While neither of
her parents were formally trained musicians, radio and records of all kinds – blues, folk, bluegrass and
classical – made up the soundtrack to her childhood. René had just one year of formal piano training at age
nine, then another year of lessons at age 13 after her parents divorced and she moved with her mother to
Roanoke, Virginia.
During her teenage years, she sang in a few R&B bands at musical functions in her community. She
composed and sang her first piece with a band when she was 15.
But René put her musical aspirations aside to make room for the obligations and responsibilities of
adulthood. She married a former bandmate when she was 18, and by the mid-1990s, she was the mother of
two and working in a bank. When she was 41, her older son convinced her to start singing again, and she
took a few tenuous steps into her local music scene, singing for tips one night a week in a hotel bar. It
would be several months before she actually earned any real money as a singer.
Her husband was initially supportive of her reboot to her musical career, but things changed by the end of
1997, when he issued an ultimatum: stop singing or leave their home. Tension over the issue escalated from
emotional abuse to domestic violence, and she left the house and the marriage behind.
“Something happens when you get up on stage and start making music with someone,” René explains.
“Another part of your personality comes to life. I had kind of pushed that down over the years, but because
of the music, I was able to speak up and defend myself and be my own advocate. So when my husband gave
me that ultimatum, it wasn’t that I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to sing.’ It was more like, ‘I don’t think I
want to live with anybody who thinks it’s okay to issue an ultimatum like that.”
Over the next 18 months, she made a series of profound course corrections that steered her back toward a
full-time career in music. She left the bank job, moved to Richmond, Virginia, divorced her husband of 23
years, produced her first CD, signed onto the MaxJazz label and took the title role in the world premiere
production of Ella and Her Fella, Frank at the Barksdale Theatre in Richmond.
René’s self-produced CD, Renaissance, was released in 1999. In 2000, she signed onto the MaxJazz label and
recorded four more over the next four years: How Can I Keep from Singing? (2000), Vertigo (2001), Live at Jazz
Standard (2003) and Serene Renegade (2004). She parted ways with the label in 2005 as part of a strategy to take
more control of her own career track. She moved to Denver, where she recorded and co-produced her sixth
CD, Experiment in Truth, released in 2007. She also focused her musical and acting talents on a one-woman
stage show, Slut Energy Theory: U’Dean, a play about overcoming abuse and incest. The play premiered in
October 2009, and the soundtrack, released by the end of that same year, was the seventh installment in her
discography.
Part of René’s musical philosophy has been focused on giving back. In 2010, she launched a series of vocal
therapy group sessions called SLAM. “I’ve never been to college or received any ‘professional’ training,” she
said at the time, “so I feel a bit anxious about my ability to convey my personal approach to singing.
However, I know what I know, and I’ve always been up for a good challenge.” And in a self-deprecating
moment, she added: “Although the thought of attempting to share my vocal philosophy often makes me
wonder if I have completely lost touch with reality.”
René joined the Motéma label with the 2011 release of Voice of My Beautiful Country, followed later that same
year by Black Lace Freudian Slip. Her 2013 follow up, I Wanna Be Evil: With Love To Eartha Kitt, earned a
Grammy nomination in the Best Jazz Vocals category.
The newest installment in her ever-expanding body of work is Sound of Red, a CD set for release on Motéma
in April 2016. It’s her first album of all-original material, an 11-song set that provides insightful glimpses into
the many small but profound turning points that are part of an individual life. René’s clever song craft and
sensual vocal delivery make those personal moments not only meaningful but enlightening to a broad
audience.
“I wanted to make a record that people could go back to again and again to excavate their emotions,” says
René. “We cover things over every day. We have to in order to move through the day and move through
our lives. We can’t always afford to be vulnerable to things like pain, loss, confusion, hurt and frustration.
I want this record to provide some kind of architecture to provide support in those moments when our
emotions are not necessarily happy ones.”
Perhaps more than most artists, René understands music’s capacity to heal and inspire. Not only has she
herself been the beneficiary of it, but she has made every effort along the way to extend those same benefits
to others.
“I have never forgotten the early lessons learned about the power of music,” she says. “Today, I try to
imbue that feeling of emotion into every song I write and every song I sing – every time. I am very happy to
be alive today, doing the things I love to do – singing, composing, writing, teaching and arranging.”
ABOUT JAZZ AT THE LOGAN
Jazz at the Logan is a series dedicated to building and enriching the jazz community. It exemplifies
UChicago Presents' mission to increase community access to all types of music. Partnerships with Chicago
organizations complement Jazz at the Logan's world-class jazz performances.
The 2016/17 season includes the three-concert Chicago Stage at the Logan series, featuring pre-concert events in partnership with The Jazz
Institute of Chicago. These events provide local, emerging jazz artists with opportunities to perform as
part of the series (Gustavo Cortiñas “Snapshot” November 4, 2016, Przybysz Quartet January 26, 2017, and
Julius Tucker Quartet May 19, 2017).
Listening sessions on November 3, 2016 and May 18, 2016, in partnership with Hyde Park Jazz Festival,
Listening sessions on November 3, 2016 and May 18, 2016, in partnership with Hyde Park Jazz Festival,
reveal insights into the artists Paquito D’Rivera and Vijay Iyer, respectively.
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