Dee Dee Bridgewater

Dee Dee Bridgewater is a Grammy and Tony Award-winning jazz singer, actress, and radio host. Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1950, Bridgewater grew up in Flint, Michigan, where she began singing in church choirs and studying piano and clarinet. She attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studied theater and music, and later moved to New York City to pursue a career in entertainment.

Bridgewater made her Broadway debut in 1970 in the musical "The Me Nobody Knows." She went on to appear in several other Broadway productions, including "Black Ballad," "The Wiz," and "Sophisticated Ladies," for which she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1982. She also appeared in the London production of "Lady Day" in 1986, a one-woman show about the life of Billie Holiday.

In addition to her theater work, Bridgewater has released over 20 albums as a jazz vocalist. Her debut album, "Afro Blue," was released in 1974 and was a critical and commercial success. She has since released several albums that have earned her Grammy Awards, including "Dear Ella," a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and "Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee," a tribute to Billie Holiday.

Bridgewater has also collaborated with a number of other musicians throughout her career, including Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, and Max Roach. She has performed at jazz festivals and venues around the world, including the Newport Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the Hollywood Bowl.

In addition to her work as a performer, Bridgewater has also worked as a radio host. She hosted the National Public Radio series "JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater" from 2001 to 2014, which featured live recordings of jazz performances from around the world.

Bridgewater has also appeared in several films and television shows throughout her career. She had a recurring role on the NBC sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" in the early 1990s, and has also appeared in films such as "The Cotton Club" and "Round Midnight."

Most recently, Bridgewater released the album "Memphis...Yes, I'm Ready" in 2017, which pays tribute to her hometown and features covers of songs by Memphis musicians such as B.B. King and Otis Redding. She also appeared in the film "Bolden," a biopic about jazz musician Buddy Bolden, which was released in 2019.