Over a multifaceted career spanning four decades, Grammy and Tony Award-winning jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater has ascended to the upper echelon of vocalists, putting her distinctive spin on standards, as well as taking intrepid leaps of faith in re-envisioning jazz classics. Ever the fearless voyager, explorer, pioneer and keeper of tradition, the three-time Grammy winner most recently won the Grammy for best jazz vocal album for “To Billie With Love From Dee Dee.”
Bridgewater’s career has always spanned musical genres. She earned her first professional experience as a member of the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Louis Big Band; throughout the ’70s, she performed with such jazz notables as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie. After a foray into the pop world during the 1980s, she relocated to Paris and began to turn her attention back to jazz.
Bridgewater began self-producing with her 1993 album “Keeping Tradition” (Polydor/Verve) and created DDB Records in 2006 when she signed with the Universal Music Group as a producer (Bridgewater produces all of her own CDs). Of her series of critically acclaimed CDs, all but one, including her wildly successful double Grammy Award-winning tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, “Dear Ella,” have received Grammy nominations. Artist Theo Croker is signed to DDB Records, and Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra also recorded a project with Bridgewater, released by her label in 2014.
Bridgewater also pursued a parallel career in musical theater, winning a Tony Award for her role as Glinda in “The Wiz” in 1975. Having recently completed a run as the lead role of Billie Holiday in the Off-Broadway production of “Lady Day,” Bridgewater also has appeared on stage in “Sophisticated Ladies,” “Black Ballad,” “Carmen,” “Cabaret” and the Off-Broadway and West End productions of “Lady Day,” for which Bridgewater received an Olivier Award nomination for best actress in a musical.
As a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Bridgewater continues to appeal for international solidarity to finance global grass-roots projects in the fight against world hunger. She is currently on tour worldwide in support of “Memphis ... Yes, I’m Ready,” her latest CD. In 2017, she received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellows Award, with honors bestowed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
2019
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSOA by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
