René Marie is a songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 and jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 vocalist. She began her professional music career at age 42. In 1999, she performed at Blues Alley

Blues Alley

Blues Alley, founded in 1965, is a jazz dinner-and-nightclub in an alley off Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown neighborhood.As of 2008, exclusively jazz musicians are booked into Blues Alley for approximately 360 nights out of the year....

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 and signed a contract with the St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

-based MAXJAZZ

Maxjazz

MAXJAZZ is an American jazz record label founded in 1999. Its catalog contains sixty-eight vocal and instrumental recordings. MAXJAZZ recordings are generally regarded as a “straight-ahead” acoustic style of jazz...

 label. She released four albums on the label, the second of which (Vertigo) received was awarded a coronet ranking by the "Penguin Guide to Jazz", a distinction given to less than 85 other recordings in jazz history. In her work, the singer often combines contrasting songs ("Dixie" and the anti-lynching "Strange Fruit" on Vertigo) or combines other works (Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

's Boléro

Boléro

Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel . Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is Ravel's most famous musical composition....

and Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

's "Suzanne

Suzanne (Leonard Cohen song)

"Suzanne" is a song written by Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen in the 1960s, and often heard in a recording by Judy Collins. It has become one of the most-covered songs in Cohen's catalogue....

" on Live at Jazz Standard.)

René Marie attracted controversy in 2008, when she was invited to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics come from "Defence of Fort McHenry", a poem written in 1814 by the 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy ships...

" at a civic event in Denver, and substituted the song's lyrics with those from "Lift Every Voice and Sing." This arrangement of the national anthem forms part of the titular suite of Marie's 2011 CD, The Voice of My Beautiful Country (Motéma Music

Motéma Music

Motéma Music is an American record label focused on jazz and world music, as well as other creative projects by virtuosic musicians who also compose. It was founded by Jana Herzen in 2003, and is now based in Harlem, New York City...

). She specializes in writing her own music, and she comments on the fact that this is not the norm in jazz in one of her songs, "This for Joe," after a club manager who got mad at her for singing originals. Her 2011 release, Black Lace Freudian Slip contains only three songs that she did not write, and one of those was written by her son, Michael A. Croan, who performs on the track with her.

Discography

• Renaissance (1999)
• How Can I Keep From Singing? (2000)
• Vertigo (2001)
• Live At Jazz Standard (2003)
• Serene Renegade (2004)
• Experiment In Truth (2007)
• The Voice of My Beautiful Country (Motéma Music
  Motéma Music
  Motéma Music is an American record label focused on jazz and world music, as well as other creative projects by virtuosic musicians who also compose. It was founded by Jana Herzen in 2003, and is now based in Harlem, New York City...
  
  , 2011)
• Black Lace Freudian Slip (Motéma, 2011)