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Dee Dee Bridgewater
Dee Dee Bridgewater strayed for a while - dabbled in other musical directions, took some acting roles. But the vocal traditions of jazz called her back.
By PHILIP BOOTH
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 19, 2000
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It's all in the mix
Organizers of this year's Clearwater Jazz Holiday hope to please with a more balanced mix of acts, including acoustic, fusion, Latin, R&B and neo-swing music.
Terence Blanchard
Terence Blanchard is keeping busy with a well-received new CD, scoring movies and as the artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at the University of Southern California.
Dee Dee Bridgewater
Dee Dee Bridgewater strayed for a while -- dabbled in other musical directions, took some acting roles. But the vocal traditions of jazz called her back.
Jerry Gonzalez
Jerry Gonzalez's musical inspiration comes from legends such as Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Machito and Eddie Palmieri who, he says, showed him how "to go in my own direction." |
Dee Dee Bridgewater, rightfully lauded as a jazz diva of the highest order, over the last decade has impressed listeners and critics alike with discs such as this year's Live at Yoshi's, the Grammy-winning Dear Ella, Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver and Keeping Tradition.
Call it a comeback, if you will, a return to prominence in the jazz world after an extended period during which the multitalented performer pursued other musical directions, focused on acting and was based in France.
"When I decided to stay in the jazz field, I did that consciously, because I saw that the vocal tradition was dying," Bridgewater said last week from her hotel in New York, where she was playing an extended engagement at Feinstein's. "It needed more representation. Ella (Fitzgerald) passed. Carmen (McRae) died. Sarah (Vaughan) died. We were losing this whole history of vocal jazz.
"This (jazz singing) is something that is innate for me," said Bridgewater, the opening-night headliner for this year's Clearwater Jazz Holiday. "It's not something that I had to learn. It's something that I've worked on to improve over the years -- my scatting. I always thought that that was what a jazz singer did."
Bridgewater, 50, a Memphis native who grew up in Michigan, made an auspicious arrival in the jazz world in the early '70s, gaining raves for her work with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra in New York, and reaping good reviews for 1974's Afro Blue, her debut solo album.
And then she switched directions, landing a Tony Award for her portrayal of Glinda the Good Witch in the Broadway musical The Wiz and emphasizing her R&B interests on a trio of discs for the Elektra label, including a self-titled 1980 release.
Bridgewater was a part of the Los Angeles production of Sophisticated Ladies, subsequently remaining with the troupe for its world tour, which landed in Paris in 1984. She appeared on the big screen in the 1979 basketball comedy The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979) and in indie director John Sayle's 1984 sci-fi film, The Brother From Another Planet.
The singer-actor returned to France in 1986, during a tour of Lady Day, and she met and married her third husband. That year she released Live in Paris, an album of standards recorded in the city that had become her adopted hometown.
Those unfamiliar with Bridgewater's work as a jazz singer might recognize her from the small screen: She has appeared in television roles, including a 1992 episode of Highlander.
Bridgewater, who now spends much of the year in Nevada, is mostly concentrating on her singing. Her next recording project will be a tribute to Kurt Weill, with arrangements done by her ex-husband, trumpeter-composer Cecil Bridgewater. The music was presented as a work in progress at the Montreal Jazz Festival, with help from Bridgewater, saxophonist Antonio Hart and trombonist Clifton Anderson, among other high-profile players.
"I've discovered all this (Weill) material that I didn't know," she said. "I also like the whole dramatic aspect of his music. I want to stay in the traditional music format, but still do something that's different or unusual in terms of jazz music."
She's also hoping to collaborate with younger players such as saxophonist David Sanchez, drummer Ali Jackson and pianists Cyrus Chestnut and Eric Reed, the last of whom will share the bill with the singer tonight in Clearwater.
And there are notions of a future connection with urban music.
"I'm beginning to entertain the idea of trying to bridge this musical gap among black musicians who are in the hip-hop field," she said. "What I'm feeling and seeing since I've come back to the States is just a lot of separation and isolation."
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