Dee Dee Bridgewater
Dee Dee Bridgewater | |
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![]() Dee Dee Bridgewater with the Big Band of the Kölner Musikhochschule, July 7, 2006, Cologne, Germany | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Denise Eileen Garrett |
Born |
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. | May 27, 1950
Origin | Michigan |
Genres | Jazz |
Occupation(s) | Singer, actress |
Years active | 1966–present |
Labels | Verve, Elektra, MCA |
Website |
deedeebridgewater |
Dee Dee Bridgewater (born May 27, 1950) is an American jazz singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award – winning stage actress and host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Biography
Born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee, she was raised Catholic in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a jazz trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School, and through his playing, she was exposed to jazz early on. At the age of sixteen, she was a member of a rock and rhythm'n'blues trio, singing in clubs in Michigan. At 18, she studied at the Michigan State University before she went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With their jazz band, she toured the Soviet Union in 1969.[1]
The next year, she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, and after their marriage, they moved to New York City, where Cecil played in Horace Silver's band. In the early 1970s, Bridgewater joined the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra as the lead vocalist.[2] This marked the beginning of her jazz career, and she performed with many of the great jazz musicians of the time, such as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and others. She performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1973. In 1974, her first own album, entitled Afro Blue, appeared, and she also performed on Broadway in the musical The Wiz. For her role as Glinda the Good Witch she won a Tony Award in 1975 as "best featured actress", and the musical also won the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.
She subsequently appeared in several other stage productions. After touring France in 1984 with the musical Sophisticated Ladies, she moved to Paris in 1986. The same year saw her in Lady Day as Billie Holiday, for which role she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award, as well as recording the song Precious Thing with Ray Charles. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she returned from the world of musical to jazz. She performed at the Sanremo Music Festival in Italy and the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1990, and four years later, she finally collaborated with Horace Silver, whom she had long admired, and released the album Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver. Performed also at the San Francisco Jazz Festival (1996). Her 1997 tribute album Dear Ella won her the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and the 1998 album Live at Yoshi's was also worth a Grammy nomination. Performed again at the Monterey Jazz Festival (1998). She has also explored on This Is New (2002) the songs of Kurt Weill, and, on her next album J'ai deux amours (2005), the French Classics.
Her album Red Earth, released in 2007, features Africa-inspired themes and contributions by numerous musicians from Mali. Performed at the San Francisco Jazz Festival (2007). On December 8, 2007 she performed with the Terence Blanchard Quintet at the prestigious John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C..[3] She tours frequently, including overseas gigs around the world. October 16, 2009 found her opening the Shanghai JZ Jazz Festival, in which she sang tunes associated with Ella Fitzgerald, along with Ellington compositions and other jazz standards.
Personal life
Bridgewater is mother to three children, Tulani Bridgewater (from her marriage to Cecil Bridgewater), China Moses (from her marriage to theater, film and television director Gilbert Moses) and Gabriel Durand (from her last marriage to French concert promoter Jean-Marie Durand). Her eldest daughter, Tulani Bridgewater, attended the Mirman School for Gifted Children in Los Angeles, CA. She went on to graduate from the Ecole Active Bilingue in Paris, France at age 16, going on to graduate from Vassar College. She serves as Bridgewater's manager and runs Bridgewater's production company and record label (DDB Productions, Inc. And DDB Records). Daughter China Moses is an accomplished singer and MTV VJ (France). Her critically acclaimed albums have earned her an international reputation as heir to Bridgewater's legacy. Moses tours worldwide, occasionally sharing the bill with Bridgewater.
Awards and honors
- First American to be inducted into the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie
- Arts and Letters Award (France)
- Tony Award, Best Featured Actress in a Musical, The Wiz, 1975
- AUDELCO Award, Outstanding Performance in a Musical-Female, LADY DAY, 2014
Grammy Awards
Year | Category | Title | Genre | Label | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1989 | Best Jazz Vocal Performance – Female | Live in Paris | Jazz | MCA | Nominee |
1994 | Best Jazz Vocal Performance | Keeping Tradition | Jazz | Polygram | Nominee |
1996 | Best Jazz Vocal Performance | Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver | Jazz | Verve | Nominee |
1998 | Best Jazz Vocal Performance | Dear Ella | Jazz | Verve | Winner |
1998 | Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) | "Cotton Tail" from Dear Ella | Jazz | Verve | Winner |
2001 | Best Jazz Vocal Album | Live at Yoshi's | Jazz | Verve | Nominee |
2005 | Jazz Vocal Album | J'ai Deux Amours | Jazz | DDB | Nominee |
2007 | Jazz Vocal Album | Red Earth | Jazz | DDB | Nominee |
2010 | Jazz Vocal Album | Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie with Love from Dee Dee Bridgewater | Jazz | EmArcy | Winner |
Selective discography
Year | Title | Genre | Label | Billboard[4] |
---|---|---|---|---|
1974 | Afro Blue | Jazz | Trio | |
1980 | Dee Dee Bridgewater | Disco | Elektra | |
1977 | Just Family | Disco | Elektra | |
1979 | Bad for Me | Disco | Elektra | |
1989 | Victim of Love | Disco | Polydor | |
1989 | Live in Paris | Jazz | EmArcy | |
1992 | In Montreux | Jazz | Verve | |
1993 | Keeping Tradition | Jazz | Verve | |
1995 | Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver | Jazz | Verve | 13 |
1997 | Dear Ella | Jazz | Verve | 5 |
2000 | Live at Yoshi's | Jazz | Verve | 20 |
2002 | This Is New | Jazz | Verve | 7 |
2005 | J'ai deux amours | Jazz | DDB | 16 |
2007 | Red Earth | Jazz | DDB | 23 |
2010 | Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie with Love from Dee Dee Bridgewater | Jazz | EmArcy | 19 |
2011 | Midnight Sun (Compilation) | Jazz | EmArcy | 20 |
2015 | Dee Dee's Feathers | Jazz | Masterworks/OKeh | |
As guest
- Frank Foster – The Loud Minority (Mainstream, 1972)
- Stanley Clarke - Children of Forever (Polydor, 1973)
- Roy Ayers – Coffy (Polydor, 1973) – as Denise Bridgewater
- Buddy Terry – Lean on Him (Mainstream, 1973)
- Norman Connors – Love from the Sun (Buddah, 1974)
- Cecil McBee – Mutima (Strata-East, 1974)
- Charles Sullivan – Genesis (Strata-East, 1974)
- Stanley Clarke – I Wanna Play for You (Nemperor, 1979)
- BWB – Groovin' (Warner Bros., 2002)
- Christian McBride – Conversations with Christian (Mack Avenue, 2011)
References
- ↑ Thomas, Jo (September 22, 1998). "A Singer Is Returning to a Stage Where It All Began". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-10-06.
- ↑ Larkin, Colin. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness, page 547, (1995) – ISBN 1-56159-176-9
- ↑ Kennedy Center: The Movie Music of Spike Lee and Terence Blanchard
- ↑ Billboard Artist Chart History: Dee Dee Bridgewater
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dee Dee Bridgewater. |
- Official site
- Dee Dee Bridgewater at the Internet Movie Database
- Dee Dee Bridgewater at the Internet Broadway Database
- Interview at Rockwired.com
- Biography at the Wayback Machine (archived September 9, 2005)