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Dee Dee Bridgewater
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A Grammy winner for her recording Dear Ella, a Tony winner for The Wiz, and a London Olivier Award nominee for Lady Day, Dee Dee Bridgewater is “a musical free spirit if there ever was one” (Los Angeles Times). Her muse led her to Africa for her latest project, which melds the voices, instruments, and music of Mali with the traditions of American jazz. In this cross-cultural concert that coincides with her new CD, Dee Dee Bridgewater is accompanied by a ten-piece band comprised of her trio plus seven of her Malian collaborators, who will be in the U.S. for only a few weeks. Don’t miss this extremely limited engagement, in which they’ll perform American jazz and Malian music on instruments from both continents. More info http://www.dakotacooks.com/pages/spotlight.html#bridgewater.
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Dee Dee Bridgewater is first and foremost a groundbreaker, an artist whose projects have traversed the musical kaleidoscope - from traditional vocal jazz to searing scat interpretations. Unafraid and uninhibited, these attributes make her perhaps the most versatile and inspiring artist and producer of her generation. Drawing on a deep font of talent and inspiration, Bridgewater’s new project, "RED EARTH - A Malian Journey", is a journey both forward and back. Melding Malian voices, music and traditional instruments with American Jazz vernacular and penning many of the lyrics, Dee Dee Bridgewater has crafted one of her most important musical statements to date.
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One of the best jazz singers of her generation, Dee Dee Bridgewater (who was married to trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater in the early '70s) had to move to France to find herself. She performed in Michigan during the 1960s and toured the Soviet Union in 1969 with the University of Illinois big band. She sang with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra (1972-74) and appeared in the Broadway musical The Wiz (1974-76). Due to erratic records and a lack of direction, Dee Dee Bridgewater was largely overlooked in the jazz world by the time she moved to France in the 1980s. She appeared in the show Lady Day and at European jazz festivals, and eventually formed her own backup group. By the late '80s Bridgewater's Verve recordings were starting to alert American listeners as to her singing talents.
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Dee Dee Bridgewater takes the stage with a dizzy brio that would embarrass a flock of singers half her age. She spins and slides around, gripping a cabled mic, the fingers of her free hand playing whatever air-instrument suits her in the moment. It’s almost fidgety, but then she’ll swoop down in a big arc and shout a whole note at the foot of the stage; it seems to go on forever, echoing down your spine. She feeds off the energy of the audience in a way that drives her into ever-looser states of manic ecstasy as the night goes on. She takes generous times-out between numbers to share a wide range of near-intimacies with her listeners, after which she’ll launch her next number, perhaps a high-flying standard at a blurred tempo, just to remind everyone in the house that the night belongs to her. The congregation gets knocked back in their chairs, and heads start to bobbing, feet to furious tapping.
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In 1971 Dee Dee joined the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, where she was to stay for four years. But even then her talents were sollicited by others: Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Cecil McBee among them, and Max Roach, with whom she gave life to the Freedom Now Suite (she succeded Abbey Lincoln) at St.Peters's Church in New York. Dee Dee can ... be heard on records by Stanley Clarke (Children of Forever), Roland Kirk (Prepare Thyself to Deal with a Miracle), alongside another singer, Jeanne Lee), Frank Foster (The Loud Minority), Buddy Terry (Lean on Him) and Norman Connors (Love from the Sum).
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Dee Dee Bridgewater lived for many years in France and several members of her band were Europeans, all dressed in dark suits over tee-shirts. The standout player was alto saxist Daniele Scannapieco, the only one who understood the value of letting some air and silences in between notes to build up some rhythm and momentum.
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Dee Dee Bridgewater