Legendary American singer Dee Dee Bridgewater is preparing to enchant audiences at the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz with a tribute to Billie Holiday, one of jazz music’s icons.
Says Bridgewater, a three-time Grammy Award-winning artist: “I did a musical tribute to Billie Holiday with an album, Eleanora Fagan, and I plan to perform a lot of material from it.”
She added that her programme would also feature work from other albums, including her still-to-be-released Midnight Sun, which is a collection of Bridgewater’s favourite songs performed over an impressive career that spans more than four decades.
About Midnight Sun, she said: “I am very proud of this album. It’s my first compilation album and it actually tells a story when you listen to all the songs, back-to-back.”
The new CD is produced by her daughter, Tulani Bridgewater-Kowalski, who is also her manager. It will be released on her own DDB Records label through Universal.
“People have always asked me to do an album of ballads and this is it,” she said.
Bridgewater has had an illustrious career in music and won a Tony Award for her performance as Glinda, the good witch of the South, in the production of The Wiz. However, she is best known for her work behind the microphone and has wowed audiences around the world.
She is excited at the prospect of coming to South Africa. She had been invited, she said, many times before, especially by the late Miriam Makeba, whom she knew well, but was unable to be here.
She is looking forward to her African sojourn and her plans include an outreach programme at a school, plenty of mixing with local people, meeting different musicians, maybe getting a jam going, and enjoying the vibe. “I just want to share some music and some rhythms while there.”
On the various musical influences that have shaped her life, she said: “It’s hard to single one out, but Betty Carter was most influential and taught me about owning your own record label and producing yourself. It was not so much what she did, but how she did it.”
As a singer she was influenced by great artists such as Ella Fitzgerald and Nancy Wilson and, incidentally, her 1997 tribute album Dear Ella won her the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) for the song Cotton Tail.
In the field of musicianship, she said she was partial to trumpeters (her father was one) and liked Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thad Jones, with whom she worked with in his big band for four years.
At this stage in her career, Bridgewater still strives to attain goals and realise dreams because without this, she says, life has no real meaning. She derives pleasure in discovering and guiding new talent, and she recently made her first signing to her label, young jazz trumpeter Theo Croker.
“If I can help young artists to realise their musical goals and dreams then I’m doing my job by giving them opportunities. This is my small contribution.”
Dee Dee Bridgewater appears at the Bassline on Friday, August 26 and Saturday, August 27. She will be accompanied by Laurence Godfrin (piano), Jaz Sawyer (drums), Kenneth Davis (bass), Edsel Gomez Rentas (piano) and Craig Handy (saxophone/flute). - Sunday Independent