Dee Dee Bridgewater

Multiple award-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater delivers an astounding masterwork complete with an entrancing set of original compositions and four reworked jazz classics on Red Earth. It is her ode to Mali and Africa – the story of a lost child finding her way home. Singing in the spirit that calls on her African and Malian ancestry and with reverence for jazz vocalists such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald at their best, Bridgewater exudes the artistic depth she is revered for around the world.

After performing a wide variety of music (much of it commercial) for 15 years, in the mid-'80s Dee Dee Bridgewater returned to jazz. The highly appealing vocalist, although still involved in theater work and other areas of music, has mostly recorded straight-ahead jazz ever since, carving out a niche for herself. This set with her regular French quartet has Bridgewater exploring and swinging some of her favorite standards. She makes such veteran songs as "Just One of Those Things," "What Is This Thing Called Love," "Autumn Leaves," and "Lullaby of Birdland" sound fresh and new. Bridgewater's next project would be a set of Horace Silver songs, and two of the pianist's originals ("Love Vibrations" and "Sister Sadie") are included and point toward the singer's future. This CD is highly recommended, as are all of Dee Dee Bridgewater's Verve recordings.

Dee Dee Bridgewater, Irvin Mayfield & The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra - Dee Dee's Feathers (2015) {OKeh Records}
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© 2015 OKeh Records / DDB Records / Sony Music | 88875063532
Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Beyond Jazz / New Orleans Jazz / Post Bop

‘Dee Dee’s Feathers’ is the first collaboration of three-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer-songwriter Dee Dee Bridgewater, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra’s (NOJO) and its Artistic Director and jazz trumpeter Irvin Mayfield. The album, the first new music by Dee Dee Bridgewater since 2010, will be available in Europe and Asia on April 20th, 2015. Dee Dee’s Feathers gives a modern vision of New Orleans, painted through traditional songs such as Big Chief, Saint James Infirmary, and What a Wonderful World along with new compositions Congo Square and C’est Ici Que Je T’aime, which will transport people through the newly constructed home of Dee Dee Bridgewater in the historic neighborhood of the Tremé.

13 years after her prior in-performance release Live in Paris, Bridgewater has not so much matured or refined her approach as she has gotten bolder. This CD was recorded on what would have been her idol Ella Fitzgerald's 80th birthday weekend at Yoshi's in Oakland, CA. She scats in the style of Fitzgerald on most of these numbers - not quite in the higher range, but comfortably in the middle – while also displaying some of Sarah Vaughan's more deeply soulful traits.
It's a combination of the two, with a little bawdiness for spice, that has made Bridgewater a prime purveyor of excitable jazz vocalizing these days. The set begins with the Charlie Shavers evergreen "Undecided," as the singer stops and starts the band on several dimes for the initial lines, exacting choppy phrases and similar scatting á la Fitzgerald on the bridge.

Afro Blue is the debut studio album by American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater. The record was released in Japan in 1974, when she was 23, via Trio Records label. The album was recorded in Tokyo with a quintet of musicians including brothers Ron and Cecil Bridgwater.