Montreal-based jazz vocalist Ranee Lee has reimagined songs by Quebec superstar Céline Dion for her latest album Because You Loved Me. The new collection features nine of Dion’s greatest hits including My Heart Will Go On, I’m Alive, All By Myself, Nature Boy and The Prayer. When her record label, Justin Time, initially approached her with the idea, Lee says she initially declined. “I said no… but I still took three minutes to listen to what they had to say, then I refused again, and I kept refusing for days, ” she explains. “At first I thought they were joking, and then it became clear that it wasn’t a joke. I have a lot of respect for Céline as a singer — she is wonderful. There is no artist these days who surpasses her in terms of skill and vocal range. It’s just not my style. Then I took some time to think about it.” But then during a trip to New York, Lee discovered the music of Snarky Puppy, the four-time Grammy-winning jazz-fusion ensemble led by bassist Michael League. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, here’s a concept — if we could take Céline’s songs and rearrange them in this style,” Lee recalls. “So I had a good foundation, knowing that I didn’t have to stay true to the original version and could improvise however I wanted, as if they were my own songs and had never been done before.” Watch the trailer for Because You Loved Me: