Althea Rene will be carrying her flute when she comes to the Mahoning Valley to perform Saturday at the Youngstown Jazz & Wine Festival.

She used to carry a gun and a badge.

When music wasn’t fully paying the bills, Rene worked for more than a decade as a deputy with the Wayne County (Michigan) Sheriff’s Office.

Even then, music remained an important part of her life.

“It was stressful, but during that time I did more recording,” Rene said during a telephone interview from her home in San Antonio. “I took the money I made and invested it into myself and learned how to be a producer and how to record. That’s when I started recording a lot of my CDs during that time.”

Those CDs spawned jazz radio hits such as “In the Flow,” which became the first flute-led single to top the Billboard smooth jazz chart.

Rene turned in her badge, and these days she spends most weekends touring. While she’s played many dates in Ohio, Rene said it will be her first time in Youngstown.

For Saturday’s performance, Rene will be backed by a trio led by keyboard player Jesse Thompson, with whom she has recorded.

“Oh, they’re fabulous, high energy, lots of fun,” Rene said. “We’re just going to be bringing it, so get ready.”

Also on the bill will be saxophone player Jeff Kashiwa, a longtime member of The Rippingtons and founder of The Sax Pack with Steve Cole and Kim Waters.

Rene and Kashiwa played a New Year’s Eve gig together years ago in South Carolina, she said, “But we haven’t had the chance to share the stage a whole lot, but he’s a great player and a really nice guy.”

Rene has released eight CDs plus a live album and a best-of collection. There is new music in the pipeline, but Rene is shifting away from full-length CDs.

“The music game is ever changing,” she said. “The whole CD is kind of going out of style now. Doing singles and getting them on radio is more profitable to building a catalog as opposed to doing a CD. Who listens to a whole CD anymore? And when you do a project, the first thing people say is, ‘When is the next one coming?’ I spent whatever on the last one and I know you didn’t listen to the whole CD.

“I have a new single coming out in August, September and I’ll keep cranking out new music,” Rene said.

Don’t expect to hear any of those unreleased songs on Saturday. Rene is a firm believer that an artist shouldn’t play something the audience can’t purchase. And she has no shortage of released music from which to build a setlist.

“I go back and do medleys of music I had earlier in my career, and it’s been going over well,” she said. “You have to let people know where you came from and where you are. It’s always a new audience. I’ve been touring nonstop, but when I ask for a show of hands if this is your first time seeing me, half the audience’s hands go up. That just means I have to continue to tour.”

Rene grew up in Detroit in a musical family. Her father, Dezie McCullers, played trumpet on more than 30 Motown hits. Her mother’s passion was more for classical music, and that’s the direction Rene first pursued as a flautist.

While studying classical music at Howard University, she also started going to jam sessions, where she fell in love with jazz.

“I never went to a jazz show until I was grown,” Rene said. “I’d gone to some ballets and, of course, some symphony orchestras, but I’d never gone to a jazz show until I was grown. That would have made a big difference.”

She is working to provide that introduction to jazz to the next generation of musicians. She founded the nonprofit organization Colors & Song, which supplements the creative arts curriculum in San Antonio area high schools.

“We do master classes and talk to high school students and mentor and sit in on the band classes and give them some guidance,” Rene said. “We’ve also been doing a jazz festival for four years where we invite students to come out and participate. They can come for free and see how a live show is put together. It’s just trying to do things for the community because a lot of these kids, I don’t know when they would see that (otherwise). You want to try to inspire.”

If you go …

WHAT: Youngstown Wine & Jazz Festival with Althea Rene and Jeff Kashiwa.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday.

WHERE: Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre, 201 S. Phelps St., Youngstown.

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $17 and $7 and are available through Ticketmaster.

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