Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American jazz singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Born as Denise Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee, to Marion and Matthew Garrett. They relocated to Flint, Michigan, where Dee Dee lived until completing high school. She started out singing in school talent shows and with local jazz bands. During her first years in college she began singing with big bands, which lead to her work with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band. At this time, she met and married trumpeter/composer Cecil Bridgewater. After touring the US, Europe, USSR and Japan, the couple had a child and divorced.
Career[]
Dee Dee made her New York debut in 1970 as the lead vocalist for the band led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, one of the premier jazz orchestras of the time. These New York years marked an early career in concerts and on recordings with such giants as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach and Roland Kirk, and rich experiences with Norman Connors, Stanley Clarke and Frank Foster's "Loud Minority."
Bridgewater as Glinda circa. 1975
Dee Dee then garnered the role of Glinda the Good in the Broadway production of The Wiz, earning a Tony Award as "Best Featured Actress".
She then married director Gilbert Moses and moved to Los Angeles, where she did some acting and released several hit albums. She and Gilbert had a child. The couple moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she starred in the soap "A Different World." Upon the couple's return to Los Angeles, Dee Dee got a leading role in the LA production of "Sophisticated Ladies" (starring Gregory Hines, Hinton Battle and others). Dee Dee remained with the company on the world tour. When Dee Dee separated from her second husband, she relocated to Paris, France, and rekindled her career as a jazz artist. Since her move to Europe, she has been internationally recognized as a creative force in the jazz world, honored with international awards and recently received two Grammy awards for her tribute album "Dear Ella." Dee Dee currently lives in France with her husband and has three children.
This began a long line of awards and accolades as well as opportunities to work in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Paris and in London where she garnered the coveted 'Laurence Olivier' Award nomination as Best Actress for her tour de force portrayal of jazz legend Billie Holiday in Stephen Stahl's Lady Day. Performing the lead in equally demanding acting/singing roles as Sophisticated Ladies, Cosmopolitan Greetings, Black Ballad, Carmen Jazz and the musical Cabaret (the first black actress to star as Sally Bowles), she secured her reputation as a consummate entertainer.
In October 1999, Dee Dee joined the battle against world hunger. Appealing for international solidarity to finance global grass-roots projects, the FAO's Ambassadors aid in developing self-reliance in long-term conservation and management of sustainable agriculture, rural development and the conservation and management of natural resources.
Dee Dee continues to bring her message to listeners. NPR's JazzSet© with Dee Dee Bridgewater is the jazz lover's ears and eyes on the world of live music. It presents today's best jazz artists in performance on stages around the world, taking listeners to Puerto Rico and Cuba, as well as Marciac in the French countryside and across the North American continent from Montreal to Monterey.