December 6, 2005

Captivating singer Dee Dee Bridgewater,
accompanied by the Hollywood Jazz Orchestra,
will perform a swinging Tribute to Ella at UCSB Campbell Hall

Summary Facts:

• Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Hollywood Jazz Orchestra
• A Tribute to Ella
• Bridgewater is a Grammy and Tony Award winner
• She hosts NPR’s weekly syndicated show JazzSet
• Saturday, January 21 / 8 pm
• UCSB Campbell Hall
• General public: $45 / UCSB students: $19
• Tickets/information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535

Chanteuse Dee Dee Bridgewater, accompanied by the knockout 15-piece Hollywood Jazz Orchestra, will perform the classic Ella Fitzgerald songbook on Saturday, January 21 at 8 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. The show will largely draw from Dear Ella, Bridgewater’s double-Grammy-winning 1997 tribute to her legendary elder, allowing Dee Dee to show every facet of her art—playful, charming, luscious, vivacious, tender—a jazzwoman, actress and musician all at once. Acclaimed for her inventive scat singing and rich tone, Dee Dee Bridgewater is hailed by the Village Voice as “one of the hardest-swinging musicians alive.”

Few entertainers have ever commanded such depth of artistry in multiple mediums. Fewer still have been rewarded with Broadway’s Tony Award (as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for The Wiz) and nominated for the London theater’s West End equivalent, the Laurence Olivier Award (as Best Actress in a Musical for Lady Day). Bridgewater also received two Grammy Awards and France’s 1998 top musical honor Victoire de la Musique (Best Jazz Vocal Album). In addition to recording, performing and acting, she also hosts NPR’s weekly syndicated show JazzSet, now in its second decade on the air.

Bridgewater’s career has always spanned musical genres and she earned her first professional experience as a member of the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Louis Big Band. Throughout the 70s, she performed with such jazz notables as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie. After a foray into the pop world during the 1980s, she relocated to Paris and began to turn her attention back to jazz. She signed with the Verve label as both a performer and producer—one of a handful of women in the jazz world with producer deals—and released a series of acclaimed titles beginning with Keeping Tradition in 1993 and continuing to her most recent CD J’ai Deux Amours, a lush collection of French love songs.

Bridgewater currently splits her time between the U.S. and France and was recently made a member of the “Haut Conseil de la Francophonie,” an organization which recognizes individuals on a global level who have made significant contributions to French culture and society. She is the first American jazz singer to receive this prestigious award. As an Honorary Ambassador to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Bridgewater continues to appeal for international solidarity to finance global grass-roots projects in the fight against world hunger, and will spend several months of 2006 in Mali, Africa, working with underprivileged female musicians.

Before a recent appearance the Boston Globe hailed Bridgewater as “jazz’s most dynamic vocalist,” asserting that in concert she would “unleash her trademark flights of scatting, solos as harmonically complex and melodically inventive as any by jazz’s great horn players. Few jazz artists enjoy being the life of the party more than Bridgewater. A true heir to the tradition of Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson and Betty Carter, Bridgewater is an artist whose musical virtuosity is inseparable from her instincts as an entertainer.”

Bridgewater will teach a master class with the UCSB Jazz Ensemble that is free and open to public observation on Saturday, January 21 at 12 noon at Geiringer Hall, UCSB Music Building. The class is co-presented by Arts & Lectures with the UCSB Department of Music and is supported by the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation’s Arts Education Outreach Program and Ellen and Robert Raede.

Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Hollywood Jazz Orchestra are presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by the Santa Barbara News-Press and KCBX Public Radio. Arts & Lectures’ Jazz Series, of which this concert is a part, is sponsored by the Warren Family in honor of James Raney Warren. Tickets are $45 for the general public and $19 for UCSB students who must show valid ID at ticket purchase and the evening of the show. Ticket prices are subject to convenience fees. Tickets are on sale now and can also be purchased at the door, if still available.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.