Dee Dee Bridgewater
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| Dee Dee Bridgewater | |
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 Dee Dee Bridgewater in concert with the Big Band of the Kölner Musikhochschule on July 7th 2006 in Cologne, Germany.
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Denise Eileen Garrett |
| Born | May 27, 1950 Memphis, Tennessee, USA |
| Origin | Flint, Michigan, USA |
| Genres | Jazz, R&B, Hip hop |
| Occupations | Singer, Actress |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1966 - Present |
| Labels | Verve |
| Website | DeeDeeBridgewater.com |
Dee Dee Bridgewater (born May 27, 1950) is an American Jazz singer. She is a two-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award - winning stage actress. and Host of NPR's Syndicated Radio show "JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater". She is a United Nations Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
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[edit] Biography
Born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee, she grew up in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a jazz trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School, and through his play, Denise 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. 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.[1] 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. 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. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she returned from the world of musical to jazz. She performed at 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 the West African nation of Mali. Performed at the San Francisco Jazz Festival (2007).
December 8, 2007 performed with the Terence Blanchard Quintet at the prestigious John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.,[2]. She tours frequently, including overseas gigs around the world. October 16, 2009 found her opening the Shanghai JZ Jazz Festival, in which Dee Dee covered a good deal of tunes associated with Ella Fitzgerald, along with Ellington compositions and other jazz standards.
In 1992, she guest-starred in an episode of Highlander the Series entitled "The Beast Below".
[edit] Family 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 current marriage to French concert promoter Jean-Marie Durand).
[edit] Selective awards and recognitions
[edit] Grammy history
- Career Wins: 2[3]
- Career Nominations: 7
| Dee Dee Bridgewater Grammy Award History | ||||||
| Year | Category | Title | Genre | Label | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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) | Dear Ella | Jazz | Verve | Winner | for the song "Cotton Tail" |
| 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 | |
[edit] Awards
Bridgewater is the first American to be inducted to the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie. She has received the Award of Arts and Letters in France. She also won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in The Wiz.
[edit] Selective discography
| Year | Title | Genre | Label | Billboard[4] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Afro Blue | Jazz | Trio | |
| 1989 | Live in Paris | Jazz | MCA | |
| 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 |
[edit] Guest Vocalist
1974- "Love From The Sun": with Norman Connors (Buddah records).
[edit] References
- ^ Larkin, Colin. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness, page 547, (1995) - ISBN 1561591769
- ^ Kennedy Center: The Movie Music of Spike Lee and Terence Blanchard
- ^ Album Awards List
- ^ Billboard Artist Chart History: Dee Dee Bridgewater
[edit] External links
- Dee Dee Bridgewater at the Internet Movie Database
- Dee Dee Bridgewater at the Internet Broadway Database
- The official Dee Dee Bridgewater site
- A recent interview
- Biography
- Another biography
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