The Renee Neufville Sessions

JAZZ@theEDGE Festival! Presents RENEE NEUFVILLE

Renee Neufville
Josh Evans (trumpet)
Keith Brown (keys)
Lonnie Plaxico (bass)
Willie Jones III (drums)

As a Brooklyn native of Jamaican parentage, Renée Neufville attended Temple University in Philadelphia, PA; this is where she formed the group Zhané in 1993 with fellow attendee Jean Norris. This culture-defining duo was discovered by the iconic Queen Latifah and renowned producer Kay Gee (Naughty By Nature ). Along with Kay Gee’s production, Renée penned the global hit classics for the group and composed the majority of the songs on the album, ZHANE (pronounced Jah-Nay). This project defined the sound for the 1990s. After the success of their first hit single, legendary record label Motown Records offered Zhané a multi-record deal, and the group continued to rocket to stardom. A string of top-5 pop classic hits including “Hey Mr. DJ,” “Groove Thing,” and “Sending My Love” led Renée Neufville to receive multiple songwriting awards and ASCAP’s coveted songwriting honor. After selling multiple platinum albums along with numerous high-profile performances and national tours, the duo parted ways to pursue the next phase of their creative paths. Herein lies the period when Renée met legendary late jazz icon, Roy Hargrove. For Renee, it was only the beginning of the very best years of her musical journey.

While most popular music fans know of Neufville as the co-founder of Zhané, more attuned music aficionados may know that for fifteen years, she “cut her teeth” touring globally with trumpeter Roy Hargrove and his band the RH Factor (Verve Records). The debut album Hardgroove enlisted Renee, Dangelo, Erykah Badu, and went on to inspire rising stars such as Jon Batiste, and Robert Glasper, both of whom performed with the band. As the main vocalist and keyboardist for this new hybrid jazz collective, Renee was inducted into the vastly beautiful universe of jazz. Together with the group, she performed at many of the world’s largest jazz festivals, including Monterey Jazz Fest, Playboy, North Sea Jazz Fest, Montreux, and more. Neufville co-wrote with Hargrove on all three of his albums, including Hardgroove (Verve), Strength (Verve ), and Distractions (Verve), serving as songwriter, composer, featured singer, and keyboardist; two of these projects received Grammy nominations. Up until Hargrove’s untimely passing, Neufville has continued to hone her performance abilities gracing the stages with many of the new burgeoning talents the industry has to offer. Some of these artists include Norah Jones (Lincoln Center), Anderson Paak (Blue Note), Terrace Martin, and long-time and respected friend Mos Def (Carnegie Hall ), to name a few. Her career spans twenty-five years, and she has performed with esteemed artists such as Dave Chappelle, Bilal (Blue Note), Grammy Award-Winning New Orleans Jazz Orchestra led by Adonis Rose, and even the late great poet Gil Scott Heron (Carnegie Hall). She has created for herself a platform that allows her to delve in many different genres…notwithstanding her “feel good music” roots.