Vocals | b. 1950

Dee Dee Bridgewater was born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee on 27 May 1950, raised in Flint, Michigan by a father who played jazz trumpet and taught music in high school. She was singing with big bands in college before moving to New York in 1970 with her husband, trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, who landed them both inside the Thad Jones and Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Village Vanguard: Cecil on trumpet, Dee Dee as featured vocalist from 1972 to 1974. Those two years placed her at the centre of the New York jazz scene, performing alongside Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In 1974, the same year DownBeat named her best new vocalist in its annual poll, Trio Records flew her to Tokyo to record what became her debut album, "Afro Blue," with Cecil, his brother Ron Bridgewater on tenor, Roland Hanna on piano and George Mraz on bass. The record sat largely unknown outside Japan for decades. She won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical the following year for her role as Glinda the Good Witch in "The Wiz," spent the late 1970s and early 1980s making soul and pop records, then relocated to Paris in the mid-1980s and rebuilt a jazz career from there. The Verve years that followed produced the Grammy-winning tribute "Dear Ella" (1997) and a second Grammy for her Billie Holiday project in 2010. She is an NEA Jazz Master and remains active.