“I was on a Christmas break,” Tony and Grammy-winning actress/singer Dee Dee Bridgewater say. “I actually was aware the day before that Dianne Reeves was cancelling her concert. She’s a wonderful woman and a dear friend. She performed at my induction into the NEA Jazz Masters. I was free and so were my musicians. I can return the favor.”
In spite of not having a holiday show already prepared, Dee Dee Bridgewater is performing Wednesday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall. To be clear, she has a Christmas show ready, if she’s performing with an orchestra. But she won’t be here.
“I am actually scrambling and putting something together,” she says the day before a performance of her orchestral holiday show in Winston/Salem. “I’m working with a young trumpeter, Theo Croker. We’ve worked together for a number of years already. We’ll be putting the show together in LA.”
Bridgewater has been on the road in support of her new album, Memphis, Yes I’m Ready. So this last minute switch means she’ll have to be on her toes for Wednesday’s show.
“It certainly forces some more creativity than normal. It could be something that would cause us to have our juices a little stronger than they normally would because there’s urgency to what we’re doing. We did do The Christmas Song for Good Morning NY show and we funked it up and it was so much fun. It’s supposed to be airing on Christmas Day. I said to the guys, ‘maybe what I’ve been waiting for is a funky soul blues Christmas album.’ So we’ll see.”
The New York Times ran a piece on Bridgewater in November. She said to them, “At this point I just want to give exposure to the things I believe in.” Will that same criteria apply to the set list she’s now putting together for this show?
“I’m going to try and do some fun things. There is one Christmas song I absolutely love, Merry Christmas Baby. I’m feeling a little full of myself these days, so I’ll do Santa Baby so I can get my groove going. I did a song with Geri Allen last year and we combined A Child Is Born and Silent Night, so I think I’ll do that in honor if Geri.”
[Geri Allen was a jazz pianist and educator who died earlier this year at the age of 60.]
Memphis, Yes I’m Ready was a project Bridgewater has wanted to do for a very long time. Most of those songs require a different band than she’ll have this week. But she’s having the time of her life performing such songs as Try a Little Tenderness, The Thrill is Gone and Don’t Be Cruel. “It’s just the bomb for me and refreshing. I’m really enjoying it. The lightness of it – simple melodies and simple songs – with these naïve love stories. It’s nothing heavy duty. Memphis has opened up a whole other range of musical exploration that’s possible.”
Her exploration of her roots (she was born in Memphis) comes on the heels of her mother’s passing. Bridgewater had been her mother’s caretaker for ten years as her mom battled dementia.
“I’d say that my mom’s dementia had a lot to lead me to do this project,” she reveals. “ As she started to transition, I started to feel a need, musically, to do things that were going to buoy me or boost my spirits. What’s going on now as I try to re-purpose my life, which is what I’m trying to do, it’s just made me realize that I don’t have to stay serious.”
And when she gets back to jazz, she hopes to bring that sense of joy to that music, too. “I have a whole band that likes to have fun. I’ve always had to work with jazz musicians to get them to have fun. That’s always a criticism I’ve had with jazz music. Musicians tend to treat it so seriously that the audience doesn’t really know how to react. Even though it’s jazz, we can have fun. I want people to have a good time.”
Photo Credits: Joe Martinez and Mark Higashino