Renée Manning

Comparable to <a href="spotify:artist:7yNele4jnVhZJ2GE7Kg25T">Ernestine Anderson</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0hirZ8kPPdM9pzXpoagB4w">Marlena Shaw</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:2H3xDjMmp31iLmsgXxLFyI">Dee Dee Bridgewater</a>, Renee Manning is a gutsy, soulful, jazz vocalist who has blues and R&B leanings. On uptempo material and jazz blues numbers, the native New Yorker can be brassy, aggressive, gritty and hard-swinging. But she has no problem being sensitive and introspective on ballads. In fact, those who listen closely to Manning's ballad performances may, at times, hear traces of <a href="spotify:artist:1YzCsTRb22dQkh9lghPIrp">Billie Holiday</a> in her phrasing. But Manning definitely has a bigger voice, and overall, she is a much more robust type of singer than <a href="spotify:artist:1YzCsTRb22dQkh9lghPIrp">Lady Day</a> -- if Manning was a tenor saxophonist, she would be closer to <a href="spotify:artist:16Xx0WCnAKOA9mwPPSUJmr">Houston Person</a> or <a href="spotify:artist:0gNn3uUyIEErdQthThI51i">Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis</a> than <a href="spotify:artist:0FMucZsEnCxs5pqBjHjIc8">Stan Getz</a>. And were she a male vocalist, Manning would be compared to <a href="spotify:artist:7FMGtucexJvUxVz7scydEL">Joe Williams</a> or <a href="spotify:artist:7sJEt4QPDYhjJ9tcHSlhhN">Kevin Mahogany</a> more than <a href="spotify:artist:3rxeQlsv0Sc2nyYaZ5W71T">Chet Baker</a>. Although she is bop-oriented and has been influenced by <a href="spotify:artist:2E3nXyfocf7qfHAIFNbBuj">Carmen McRae</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:5V0MlUE1Bft0mbLlND7FJz">Ella Fitzgerald</a>, not all of her influences are bop influences. <a href="spotify:artist:1YzCsTRb22dQkh9lghPIrp">Holiday</a>, of course, came out of jazz's pre-bop era, and Manning occasionally shows an awareness of jazz-influenced classic blues singers like <a href="spotify:artist:5ESobCkc6JI4tIMxQttqeg">Bessie Smith</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:62G2r7t9N2Ad9ILHbg4Eqh">Ida Cox</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:1ygXiRxKSfb927vhBH1ruH">Ma Rainey</a>. (One of the songs that she likes to perform live is <a href="spotify:artist:3VkdiA1x4W2ISeJPWHswtQ">Blue Lu Barker</a>'s risqué "Don't You Feel My Leg").

Born and raised in Brooklyn NY, Manning attended New York's Music and Art High School as a teenager and in the '70s went on to be employed on albums by hard bop/soul-jazz players like tenor saxman <a href="spotify:artist:5OPNYwuIto3q4ac46rIIZC">David "Fathead" Newman</a> and the late cornetist <a href="spotify:artist:7KjjSmSX5wCE1KYOerEf6D">Nat Adderley</a> (alto saxophonist <a href="spotify:artist:5v74mT11KGJqadf9sLw4dA">Cannonball Adderley</a>'s brother). Manning's most visible association, however, came in the '80s, when she started a five-year gig as a featured vocalist for the <a href="spotify:artist:5iqgiLoStMoBRTwmwx3OPh">Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra</a>. In 1991, Manning recorded her first solo album, As Is, for Ken Music, a small independent jazz label based in New York. Subsequently, Ken released her second album, Uhm...Uhm...Uhmmmm, which contained recordings from 1986, 1989, and 1991. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi