Artist
Dee Dee Bridgewater
Dee Dee Bridgewater (Memphis, May 27, 1950) is an American jazz singer. She has won two Grammy Awards and one Tony Award. She is host of NPR's Syndicated Radio show "JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater" and American ambassador of the FAO.
Bridgewater was born in Memphis as Denise Eileen Garrett and grew up in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a jazz trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School, which exposed her to jazz at an early age. At sixteen years old, she was a member of a rhythm and blues trio, and sang in clubs in Michigan. At eighteen years old, she studied at Michigan State University, before going to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She toured the Soviet Union in 1969 with her jazz band. The following year she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater with whom she married. The couple moved to New York, where Cecil joined the band of Horace Silver.
In the early seventies, Dee Dee Bridgewater was vocalist of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. This marked the beginning of her jazz career, and she played with many great jazz musicians of her time, including Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Max Roach. In 1974, her first solo album Afro Blue appeared and she played the role of Glinda the Good Witch in the musical The Wiz on Broadway, for which she received a Tony Award.
Bridgewater was born in Memphis as Denise Eileen Garrett and grew up in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a jazz trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School, which exposed her to jazz at an early age. At sixteen years old, she was a member of a rhythm and blues trio, and sang in clubs in Michigan. At eighteen years old, she studied at Michigan State University, before going to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She toured the Soviet Union in 1969 with her jazz band. The following year she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater with whom she married. The couple moved to New York, where Cecil joined the band of Horace Silver.
In the early seventies, Dee Dee Bridgewater was vocalist of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. This marked the beginning of her jazz career, and she played with many great jazz musicians of her time, including Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Max Roach. In 1974, her first solo album Afro Blue appeared and she played the role of Glinda the Good Witch in the musical The Wiz on Broadway, for which she received a Tony Award.
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