March 1, 2013
The GazetteMarch 2, 2013
By Pat Donnelly
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Queen of Jazz transforms into Queen of Gospel
MONTREAL - It takes a diva to portray a diva. And Mahalia Jackson wasn’t just a diva — she was the Queen of Gospel, beloved around the world. So Canada’s reigning Queen of Jazz, Ranee Lee, was the obvious choice to star in The Mahalia Jackson Musical, written and directed by Roger Peace, which is about to première at the Segal Centre.
Lee is very much aware that she is being asked to fill some “mighty big shoes” in this show. Not to mention a few dresses somewhat larger than her normal size. And she has been obliged to adapt to another musical genre as well as master an accent. “She was born in New Orleans,” Lee explained in an interview this week. “I was born in Brooklyn.” The cadences differ.
As far as the music is concerned, “it’s just so uplifting and foot-stomping and good,” she said. “I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t sing gospel before. I was Roman Catholic. We sang Latin.”
One thing the two American-born women did have in common, Lee discovered while doing her research, is their birthday: Oct. 26. Pure serendipity, but haunting.
The key difference being that Jackson died in 1972, at the age of 60. And Lee, who was born in 1942, remains, happily, very much with us.
Beyond the Jackson vocals, Lee said, her biggest challenge has been to find herself in the music. “There was only one Mahalia,” she said. “She preached when she sang the music.”
In fact, Jackson refused to sing secular songs throughout her career. Nobody could sing Go Tell It on the Mountain like Jackson could. And only a fool would try.
But she certainly listened to secular music, Lee said, and clearly cited Bessie Smith as a mentor.
Lee has travelled the diva road before. Notably, she played blues legend Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, by Lanie Robertson. It premièred at Club Soda as part of the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 1987 and went on to become a national hit.
“I didn’t sing like Billie,” Lee said. “In order to sell the song like I felt it, I had to be true to me. I have to find my characterization in my own performance.”
The Holiday show, also directed by Peace, played at Centaur Theatre and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and had a long run in Toronto, where it garnered Lee a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 1988. After one last run at Centaur in 1994, Lee gave up the role that had reinvigorated her recording career as well as her theatrical one. (In recent years she has acted with Black Theatre Workshop in Swan Song of Maria and Raisin in the Sun.)
After such huge success, it was only natural that Peace and Lee — who had begun collaborating before Lady Day, on Montreal’s hit production of Ain’t Misbehavin’ — continued to work together, through Nunsense I and II, and another Holiday show, written by Peace, titled White Gardenia. Lee also wrote her own theatrical show, Dark Divas, which paid tribute to a whole line of black divas from Pearl Bailey to Josephine Baker, Holiday, Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.
So The Mahalia Jackson Musical fits neatly into the trajectory and has been cooking on the back burner for some time. In fact, its première was announced two years ago. The performers were hired, but the deal fell through for business reasons. Now it’s finally becoming a reality thanks to a co-production deal between Copa de Oro Productions and the Segal Centre. Plans were set in motion six months ago, Lee said. That’s when her research and voice work began in earnest.
There’s nothing surreal about The Mahalia Jackson Musical. It tells a straightforward, chronological, condensed version of the story of Jackson’s remarkable life as a civil rights activist and singer.
There are two other actors in the show (Tristan D. Lalla and Adrienne Mei Irving) plus nine members of the Imani Gospel Singers choir and four musicians, including one appearing as Jackson’s piano accompanist (Taurey Butler).
“The staging is quite sparse,” Lee added. “There aren’t a lot of props.”
Lee first came to Canada as a musician in the 1960s, and returned to live here in 1972. She became a dual citizen in 1991. Not one to rest on her laurels, which include the Order of Canada, she has been teaching jazz at McGill since 1987. And she’ll continue to do so, throughout The Mahalia Jackson Musical’s run.
Could the show lead to a gospel album? After all, Lady Day and Dark Divas were both followed by related recordings.
“Stranger things have happened,” Lee replied.
As for the show, “Be prepared to get your soul stretched,” she warned.
The Mahalia Jackson Musical, written and directed by Roger Peace, begins previews Sunday, March 3 and opens Thursday, March 7 at the Segal Centre, 5170 Côte Ste. Catherine Rd., continuing until March 24. Call 514-739-7944 or visit www.segalcentre.org.