[Dixielandjazz] To Billie with Love - Dee Dee Bridgewater's Tribute

[Harry Callaghan]

Steve:

I am so glad to hear someone else making mention of Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Many years ago, I picked up a used cassette by her.  Having never heard of
her before, I just looked at her picture on the cover and the list of
selections and said, "This just looks like a chick who might have been
influenced by the likes of Ella, Sarah, Billie, etc" and it turned out that
I was right on

I've since acquired a coupla LPs by her, one I think recorded live in
Japan.  Having seen her in one of the BET jazz programs, I seem to recall
that she was away from the U.S. for a considerable number of years, possibly
in France.  However, one of the European subscribers here on DJML would be
far more qualified  on the subject.than I.

If I had any criticism as to the recordings I have by her, I would have to
say there was more scatting than I really cared to hear.  However, I could
often say the same of my favorite jazz vocalist, the late Carmen McRae, as
well as Ella., Mel Torme and a few others.

Of course, you posting this reminds me once again of the things that just
ain't gonna happen in this hick town in Texas.

Tides,
Harry


On 2/19/10, Stephen G Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> February 19, 2010 - NY TIMES - By Stephen Holden
>
> A Woman and Her Band Commune With a Legend
>
>
> Introducing her Billie Holiday tribute, “To Billie With Love — A
> Celebration of Lady Day,” on Wednesday evening at the Allen Room, the singer
> Dee Dee Bridgewater declared that the standard image of Holiday as a tragic
> figure shrouded in sadness was only partly true. Holiday was also a very
> funny woman who could curse like a sailor and loved to cook for her fellow
> musicians, Ms. Bridgewater insisted. She went on to sing a program of
> Holiday-associated songs, many of which she and her phenomenal band infused
> with an epic sense of expressive possibility.
>
> Ms. Bridgewater’s singing has only a passing resemblance to Holiday’s
> scratchy feline sound made within a narrow range of little more than an
> octave. But her playful dead-on imitation of Holiday singing the opening
> phrases of “Fine and Mellow” showed that if she had chosen, Ms. Bridgewater
> could have done the entire show (part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook
> series) as an eerie impersonation. But she had a much more ambitious agenda.
>
> The band — Edsel Gomez on piano, Craig Handy on saxophones and flute,
> Christian McBride (substituting for Ira Coleman) on bass and Gregory
> Hutchinson on drums — was no mere backup. Many numbers were open-ended
> collaborations between Ms. Bridgewater and her musicians that assumed a
> theatrical dimension.
>
> With her rangy chameleonic voice, Ms. Bridgewater can venture anywhere she
> pleases. Fearlessly flexing her instrument, she released uninhibited streams
> of consciousness that prodded her musicians to follow her into wide-open
> spaces where they seemed happy to go.
>
> The most spectacular performance, on the obscure “Your Mother’s
> Son-in-Law,” was an extended, erotically charged “pas de deux,” in which Mr.
> McBride’s bass, “making love” to Ms. Bridgewater’s voice, elicited sounds
> evoking everything from laughter to a baby’s cry. Pushing her voice almost
> to the point at which her singing threatened to turn into an acting
> exercise, Ms. Bridgewater held back just enough for the piece to cohere as a
> brilliant jazz improvisation.
>
> Mr. Handy was the other key player. Throughout the show he exhibited a
> combination of sensitivity and audacity that suggested a telepathic
> connection to Ms. Bridgewater, as he explored the timbral limits of the
> flute and saxophones in much the same way that she used her voice.
>
> For all her stylistic extravagance, Ms. Bridgewater demonstrated impressive
> restraint in her hushed, transfixing rendition of “Strange Fruit.” It was
> done much the same way as Holiday’s classic interpretation, right down to
> the enunciation of the final word, “crop,” in a husky breaking voice.
>
>
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