Dee Dee Bridgewater
0.1Acting

Dee Dee Bridgewater

May 27, 1950 - Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Dee Dee Bridgewater (née Denise Garrett, May 27, 1950) is an American jazz singer and actress. 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.

Born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee, she was raised Catholic in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a jazz trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School, and through his playing, she was exposed to jazz early on. At the age of sixteen, she was a member of a Rock and R&B trio, singing in clubs in Michigan. At 18, she studied at Michigan State University before she went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With the school's jazz band, she toured the Soviet Union in 1969.

The next year, she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, and after their marriage, they moved to New York City, where Cecil played in Horace Silver's band. In the early 1970s, Bridgewater joined the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra as lead vocalist. This marked the beginning of her jazz career, and she performed with many of the great jazz musicians of the time, such as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Wayne Garfield, and others. She performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1973. In 1974, her first solo album, entitled Afro Blue, appeared, and she performed on Broadway in the musical The Wiz. For her role as Glinda the Good Witch she won a Tony Award in 1975 as "Best Featured Actress", and the musical also won the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.

She subsequently appeared in several other stage productions. After touring France in 1984 with the musical Sophisticated Ladies, she moved to Paris in 1986. The same year saw her in Lady Day, as Billie Holiday, for which role she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award, as well as recording the song "Precious Thing" with Ray Charles, featured on her album Victim of Love.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she returned from the world of Pop and Contemporary R&B to Jazz. She performed at the Sanremo Music Festival in Italy and the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1990, and four years later, she finally collaborated with Horace Silver, whom she had long admired, and released the album Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver. Performed also at the San Francisco Jazz Festival (1996). Her 1997 tribute album Dear Ella won her the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and the 1998 album Live at Yoshi's was also worth a Grammy nomination. Performed again at the Monterey Jazz Festival (1998). She has also explored on This Is New (2002) the songs of Kurt Weill, and, on her next album J'ai deux amours (2005), the French Classics. ...

Source: Article "Dee Dee Bridgewater" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Credits

Cast

Media
Movie2015Billie Holiday: A SensationHerself
Movie2007Go West: A Lucky Luke AdventureMolly (voice)
Movie2007Dee Dee Bridgewater "Motherland"Self
Movie2004Dee Dee Bridgewater Sings Kurt Weill Live At North Sea Jazz FestivalSelf
Movie2013Dee Dee Bridgewater - Jazz Open StuttgartSelf
Movie2023Max Roach: The Drum Also WaltzesSelf
Movie1975Everybody Rides the CarouselStage 7 (voice)
Movie2014Dee Dee Bridgewater - Jazz in MarciacSelf - Vocal - jazz
Movie2016Jazz at the White HouseSelf
Movie2002Im Herzen des Lichts – Die Nacht der PrimadonnenSelf
Movie2017Pure Love: The Voice of Ella FitzgeraldSelf
Movie2010Dee Dee Bridgewater - Live in Antibes & Juan-Les-PinsSelf - Vocals
Movie1998It's Not About LoveThe woman with the glass of milk
Movie2006Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in EuropeSelf
Movie1979The Fish That Saved PittsburghBrandy
Movie1984The Brother from Another PlanetMalverne Davis
Movie1983Night PartnersGloria
Movie2017Jazz Open Stuttgart 2017 - Festival of World Stars and Child ProdigiesSelf
Movie2017Quincy Jones & Friends - Live at Jazz Open StuttgartSelf
TV Show1990Fort BoyardSelf1
TV Show1985Victoires de la musiqueSelf1
TV Show2006La Boîte à musiqueSelf1
TV Show1962The Tonight Show Starring Johnny CarsonSelf3
TV Show1961The Mike Douglas ShowSelf1
TV Show1972Le Grand ÉchiquierSelf1
TV Show1992Highlander: The SeriesCarolyn1
TV Show1982Champs-ElyséesSelf3
TV Show1987Le monde est à vousSelf12
TV Show1987TéléthonSelf2
TV Show1998Vivement dimancheSelf2
TV Show1971Great PerformancesSelf1
TV Show2002L'InvitéSelf1
TV Show2020Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas with Vanessa WilliamsSelf1
TV Show1987Sacrée soiréeSelf2

Crew

No crew credits available.