Dee Dee Bridgewater was born in. Dee Dee Bridgewater (born May 27, 1950) was an American jazz singer. She is a Grammy Award winner, Tony Award Winner, and host of NPR’s Syndicated Radio program “JazzSet With Dee Dee Bridgewater”. She is an Ambassador of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). She was born Denise Eileen Garrett, in Memphis, Tennessee. She grew up in Flint in Michigan. Matthew Garrett was Denise’s father and a jazz trumpeter. Through his playing, Denise was introduced to jazz early. She was sixteen years old when she joined a rock and rhythm’n’blues group, and began singing in Michigan clubs. She attended the Michigan State University at age 18, before moving to Illinois. She toured the Soviet Union with her jazz band in 1969. She met Cecil Bridgewater in 1969, and they married. Cecil was a trumpeter in Horace Silver’s band. Dee Dee Bridgewater was the first vocalist in the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1971. Her jazz career began in the following years. She performed with many great jazz musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach. Her first album, Afro Blue, was released in 1974. She also appeared on Broadway in The Wiz. She won a Tony Award as best featured actress for her role in Glinda, the Good Witch. The musical also won the 1976 Grammy Award as Best Musical Show Album. Later, she appeared in many other stage productions. She moved to Paris in 1986 after touring France with the musical Sophisticated Lady in 1984. She was also featured in Lady Day as Billie Holliday that year, and she was nominated to the Laurence Olivier Award. She returned to jazz in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. In 1990 she performed at Montreux Jazz Festival. Four years later she released Love and Peace: A Tribute To Horace Silver. She won the 1998 Grammy Award as Best Jazz Vocal Album for her tribute album Dear Ella. The Grammy nomination was also given to the 1998 album Live At Yoshi’s. On This is New, she explored the songs of Kurt Weill and on her most recent album J’ai Deux Amours the French Classics. Dee Dee Bridgewater was the first American inducted into the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie. She was awarded the French Award of Arts and Letters. Dee Dee Bridgewater has three children. She is the mother of Tulani Bridgewater, her husband Cecil Bridgewater, and China Moses, her marriage to Gilbert Moses, a theater, film, and television director. Gabriel Durand is her current marriage, to Jean-Marie Durand, a French concert promoter. You can also access user-contributed text under the Creative Commons By–SA License.
