Dee Dee Bridgewater
Encyclopedia
Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 winning singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

, as well as a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 - winning stage actress and host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...

.

Biography

Born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

, she grew up in Flint, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...

. 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
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 trio, singing in clubs in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. At 18, she studied at the Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

 before she went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

. With their jazz band, she toured the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 in 1969. The next year, she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater
Cecil Bridgewater
-Biography:Bridgewater was born in Urbana, Illinois and studied at the University of Illinois. He and brother Ron formed the Bridgewater Brothers Band in 1969, and in the 1970s he was married to Dee Dee Bridgewater. In 1970 he played with Horace Silver, and following this with Thad Jones and Mel...

, and after their marriage, they moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where Cecil played in Horace Silver
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....

's band.

In the early 1970s, Bridgewater joined the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra
Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band
The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra was a jazz big band formed by trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis around 1965. The band performed for twelve years in its original incarnation, and included a 1972 tour of the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. The band won a 1978...

 as the lead vocalist. 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
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...

, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...

, Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...

, Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...

 and others. She performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival
Monterey Jazz Festival
The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the longest consecutively running jazz festivals. It debuted on October 3, 1958 and was founded by San Francisco jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons.-History:...

 in 1973. In 1974, her first own album, entitled Afro Blue, appeared, and she also performed on Broadway in the musical The Wiz
The Wiz
The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls and book by William F. Brown. It is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the context of African American culture. It opened on October 21, 1974 at the Morris A...

. For her role as Glinda the Good Witch she won a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 in 1975 as "best featured actress", and the musical also won the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album
Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album
The Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album has been awarded since 1959. The award was given only to the album producer, and to the composer and lyricist who wrote at least 51% of the music which had not been recorded previously....

.
She subsequently appeared in several other stage productions. After touring France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in 1984 with the musical Sophisticated Ladies, she moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1986. The same year saw her in Lady Day as Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...

, 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
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva...

 in 1990, and four years later, she finally collaborated with Horace Silver
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....

, 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
San Francisco Jazz Festival
Debuting in 1983, the San Francisco Jazz Festival is an annual three-week celebration of today's best music, with over 30 concerts. Produced by SFJAZZ, a non-profit organization dedicated to jazz and jazz education...

 (1996). Her 1997 tribute album Dear Ella
Dear Ella
Dear Ella is a 1997 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, who had died the previous year.For Dear Ella, Bridgewater won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Slide Hampton won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist...

won her the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album
The Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album has been presented since 1977. Until 2001 this award was titled the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance...

, and the 1998 album Live at Yoshi's was also worth a Grammy nomination. Performed again at the Monterey Jazz Festival
Monterey Jazz Festival
The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the longest consecutively running jazz festivals. It debuted on October 3, 1958 and was founded by San Francisco jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons.-History:...

 (1998). She has also explored on This is New
This is New
This is New is a 2002 album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, dedicated to the songs of Kurt Weill.-Track listing:#"This Is New" – 3:47#"Lost in the Stars" – 5:36#"The Bilbao Song" – 10:24...

(2002) the songs of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

, and, on her next album J'ai Deux Amours
J'ai Deux Amours
J'ai Deux Amours is a 2005 album by Dee Dee Bridgewater. This was Bridgewater's first album of French music; she lived in France for more than two decades and speaks French.-Track listing:...

(2005), the French Classics.

Her album Red Earth, released in 2007, features Africa-inspired themes and contributions by numerous musicians from the West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

n nation of Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

. Performed at the San Francisco Jazz Festival
San Francisco Jazz Festival
Debuting in 1983, the San Francisco Jazz Festival is an annual three-week celebration of today's best music, with over 30 concerts. Produced by SFJAZZ, a non-profit organization dedicated to jazz and jazz education...

 (2007).

December 8, 2007 performed with the Terence Blanchard
Terence Blanchard
Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score composer. Since he emerged on the scene in 1980 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and then shortly thereafter with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Blanchard has been a leading artist in jazz...

 Quintet at the prestigious John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...

 in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. 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.

China Moses
China Moses
China Moses is an American television host and jazz singer.- Life :China Moses is the daughter of jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and film and television director Gilbert Moses. Since 1997 she works as a singer, songwriter and producer...

 is her daughter.

Family life

Bridgewater is mother to three children, Tulani Bridgewater (from her marriage to Cecil Bridgewater), China Moses
China Moses
China Moses is an American television host and jazz singer.- Life :China Moses is the daughter of jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and film and television director Gilbert Moses. Since 1997 she works as a singer, songwriter and producer...

 (from her marriage to theater, film and television director Gilbert Moses
Gilbert Moses
Gilbert Moses III was an American stage, screen, and television director.-Early life and career:Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Moses was the co-founder of the Free Southern Theater company, an important pioneer of African-American theatre...

) and Gabriel Durand (from her last marriage to French concert promoter Jean-Marie Durand). Her eldest daughter, Tulani Bridgewater attended The Mirman School for the Gifted 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
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

. 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.

Grammy history

  • Career Wins: 3
  • Career Nominations: 7
    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
    Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver
    Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver is a 1995 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Horace Silver.Silver himself makes two guest appearances on this album, on "Nica's Dream" and "Song for My Father". Silver's contributions were recorded on December 1, 1994...

    Jazz Verve Nominee
    1998 Best Jazz Vocal Performance Dear Ella
    Dear Ella
    Dear Ella is a 1997 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, who had died the previous year.For Dear Ella, Bridgewater won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Slide Hampton won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist...

    Jazz Verve Winner
    1998 Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) "Cotton Tail
    Cotton Tail
    "Cotton Tail" is a 1940 composition by Duke Ellington. It is based on the rhythm changes from George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm". The first Ellington recording is notable for the driving tenor saxophone solo by Ben Webster. Originally an instrumental, "Cotton Tail" later had lyrics written for it by...

    " from Dear Ella
    Dear Ella
    Dear Ella is a 1997 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, who had died the previous year.For Dear Ella, Bridgewater won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Slide Hampton won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist...

    Jazz Verve Winner
    2001 Best Jazz Vocal Album Live at Yoshi's Jazz Verve Nominee
    2005 Jazz Vocal Album J'ai Deux Amours
    J'ai Deux Amours
    J'ai Deux Amours is a 2005 album by Dee Dee Bridgewater. This was Bridgewater's first album of French music; she lived in France for more than two decades and speaks French.-Track listing:...

    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
    Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie with Love From Dee Dee Bridgewater
    Eleanora Fagan : To Billie with Love From Dee Dee Bridgewater is a 2009 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Billie Holiday...

    Jazz EmArcy Winner

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
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in The Wiz
The Wiz
The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls and book by William F. Brown. It is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the context of African American culture. It opened on October 21, 1974 at the Morris A...

.

Selective discography

Year Title Genre Label Billboard
1974 Afro Blue Jazz Trio
1976 Dee Dee Bridgewater Disco Atlantic
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...

1977 Just Family Disco WSM
1979 Bad for Me Disco Elektra
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....

1989 Live in Paris Jazz EmArcy
EmArcy Records
EmArcy Records is a jazz record label founded in 1954 by Mercury Records, and today a European jazz label owned by Universal Music Group. The name is a phonetic spelling of "MRC", the initials for Mercury Record Company....

1992 In Montreux Jazz Verve
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...

1993 Keeping Tradition Jazz Verve
1995 Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver
Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver
Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver is a 1995 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Horace Silver.Silver himself makes two guest appearances on this album, on "Nica's Dream" and "Song for My Father". Silver's contributions were recorded on December 1, 1994...

Jazz Verve 13
1997 Dear Ella
Dear Ella
Dear Ella is a 1997 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, who had died the previous year.For Dear Ella, Bridgewater won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Slide Hampton won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist...

Jazz Verve 5
2000 Live at Yoshi's Jazz Verve 20
2002 This Is New
This is New
This is New is a 2002 album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, dedicated to the songs of Kurt Weill.-Track listing:#"This Is New" – 3:47#"Lost in the Stars" – 5:36#"The Bilbao Song" – 10:24...

Jazz Verve 7
2005 J'ai Deux Amours
J'ai Deux Amours
J'ai Deux Amours is a 2005 album by Dee Dee Bridgewater. This was Bridgewater's first album of French music; she lived in France for more than two decades and speaks French.-Track listing:...

Jazz DDB 16
2007 Red Earth Jazz DDB 23
2010 Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie with Love from Dee Dee Bridgewater
Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie with Love From Dee Dee Bridgewater
Eleanora Fagan : To Billie with Love From Dee Dee Bridgewater is a 2009 studio album by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recorded in tribute to Billie Holiday...

Jazz EmArcy
2011 Midnight Sun Jazz

External links

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