Dee Dee Bridgewater
Released March 2, 2010
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album 2011
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nIc9H-RUIKdTPBxMB-UZLYQ2r9YGYCXmE
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About:
Over the course of a multifaceted career that has spanned four decades, Dee Dee Bridgewater has risen to the top tier of today’s jazz vocalists, putting her own unique spin on standards as well as taking intrepid leaps of faith in re-envisioning jazz classics. For her latest recording, Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee, Bridgewater honors an iconic jazz figure, Billie Holiday, who died tragically at the age of 44 a half-century ago. Ms. Bridgewater states that Eleanora Fagan goes far deeper than being a tribute album of retreaded Holiday tunes. “Billie deserves to have her music heard in another light,” she says, “and I definitely didn’t set out to imitate her.” Key to the fresh approach is pianist Edsel Gomez, Bridgewater’s longtime band mate who wrote new arrangements for the 12 songs on the album, including the African polyrhythmic-charged interpretation of “Lady Sings the Blues, ” a reharmonized version of “All of Me” and the gospel-tinged “God Bless the Child.” Says Bridgewater: “Edsel is an extremely gifted, talented arranger with very modern ideas. Edsel has the ability to be modern and work in a tasteful fashion.” Gomez took on the daunting challenge of bringing new life to the music with enthusiasm. “I listened to everything Billie Holiday ever recorded,” he says. “I let her music speak to me.” He also kept in mind the personalities of the all-star band Bridgewater had assembled for the recording: dynamic reeds player James Carter, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash. “This was my dream band,” says Bridgewater. “I got to work with these musicians who I’d been dying to play with. I thought, I can’t miss. With this band I can have a hard-swinging, touching celebration of Billie’s music.” Bridgewater sings into the nuances of such songs as “Good Morning Heartache,” “Lover Man” and “Fine and Mellow” with an allure that’s equal parts sexy, spunky and sublime. “This was the first time when I wasn’t concerned about having a particular sound of voice,” Bridgewater says. “I was just singing from my gut. It was all so swinging and so soulful.” Other highlights include the haunting “You’ve Changed” with Carter blowing smoky soul to complement Bridgewater’s moving vocals, the spunky “Mother’s Son-in-Law” with McBride dueting with the coquettish singer, and the uptempo “Miss Brown to You” featuring Nash’s drumming prowess. Over the course of her career, Bridgewater has paid homage to monumental figures of the music world, recording albums dedicated to Ella Fitzgerald (the Grammy Award-winning Dear Ella, 1997), Horace Silver (Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver, 1995) and Kurt Weill (This Is New, 2002). But with Eleanora Fagan–the follow-up to 2007’s brilliant Red Earth: A Malian Journey that melded the music of Mali with jazz–Bridgewater delivers one of the most remarkable recording performances of her career. “Dee Dee is a spirited dynamo and a soulful balladeer,” says liner note writer Dan Ouellette. “She sings with a razor-edged voice; she scats with abandon; she makes you cry. She even chokes up herself upon descending into the ghoulish drama of `Strange Fruit,’ which serves as the album’s poignant finale. She gives a moving read with a sparse arrangement supporting her.” Instead of playing it safe and recreating her performance in Lady Day, on Eleanora Fagan, Bridgewater reacquaints herself with Holiday, shining a new ray of love on the often-misunderstood jazz icon. “I wanted the record to be a collection that would not be like the music of the show,” she says. That philosophy is in keeping with Bridgewater’s approach to all of her projects: “I want to move forward, just as I’ve done with each of my albums. To not go backwards, but progress. Constantly.”
Track Listing:
1. Lady Sings the Blues (Billie Holiday / Herbie Nichols) 3:31
2. All of Me (Gerald Marks / Seymour B. Simons) 2:58
3. Good Morning Heartache (Ervin Drake / Dan Fisher / Irene Higginbotham) 5:11
4. Lover Man (James Edward Davis / Roger J. Ramirez / James Sherman) 4:43
5. You’ve Changed (William “Bill” Carey / Carl Fischer) 5:11
6. Miss Brown To You (Ralph Rainger / Leo Robin / Richard A. Whiting) 2:12
7. Don’t Explain (Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog, Jr.) 6:15
8. Fine and Mellow (Billie Holiday) 4:55
9. Mother’s Son-In-Law (Mann Holiner / Alberta Nichols) 2:47
10. God Bless the Child (Billie Holiday / Arthur Herzog, Jr.) 5:13
11. A Foggy Day (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) 4:33
12. Strange Fruit (Lewis Allan) 4:16
Personnel:
Dee Dee Bridgewater: vocals
Craig Handy
James Carter: bass clarinet, alto flute, soprano and tenor saxophones
Edsel Gomez: piano
Christian McBride: bass
Lewis Nash: drums
Recorded June 5 – 7, 2009, at Avatar Studios, New York, NY and Capitol studios, Los Angeles, CA
Producer: Dee Dee Bridgewater
Engineer: Al Schmitt
Mastering: Doug Sax
Photography: Mark Higashino
Review:
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Dee Dee Bridgewater chose to record a tribute album to Billie Holiday. In quick succession beginning in the mid-’90s Bridgewater cut tribute albums to Ella Fitzgerald, Horace Silver, and Kurt Weill, and prior to that, in the late ’80s, she was nominated for an award for her one-woman star turn in a European theater production of Lady Day, the Holiday story. That Bridgewater would eventually turn to Holiday (whose given name of Eleanora Fagan explains the title) for an album-length exploration was almost a given — it was just a question of when. It’s one of her grandest efforts, too. With arrangements by Edsel Gomez (who also provides piano) and a stellar cast of participants including bassist Christian McBride, saxophonist/flutist/bass clarinetist James Carter, and drummer Lewis Nash, Bridgewater doesn’t attempt to mimic Holiday’s mannerisms or inflections but, as one would expect of such a gifted artist, to absorb and reframe Holiday — this is pure Bridgewater, not another performance of Lady Day. Gomez, for his part, quite often pulls the arrangements squarely away from Holiday territory to reinvent these classic songs for a modern audience. The opening “Lady Sings the Blues” is both instantly recognizable yet freshly reconceived as something of an uptempo blues packed with polyrhythmic punch. “All of Me,” which follows, is taken at near-breakneck speed, Bridgewater jumping ahead of the beat, following Carter’s thrilling soprano sax solo with a raging scat that’s more Ella than Billie. Not everything is meant to redefine, though: “God Bless the Child” is mostly true to the original, though Carter’s soprano solo again brings the tune into the new century, and “Lover Man,” though livelier than Holiday’s take, is offered in a somewhat timeless and straightforward manner. As one might expect, there’s no way a singer with Bridgewater’s commitment to jazz history could release a Holiday tribute without tackling “Strange Fruit,” the controversial anti-lynching landmark that remains Holiday’s most daring moment, and it’s saved for last here. It’s an eerie, ominous interpretation, Bridgewater’s raw vocal up front and fraught with emotion. Carter’s brooding bass clarinet and McBride’s bass lend a foreboding quality to the take, Nash relies heavily on his cymbals to dramatic effect, and Gomez’s piano is subtle, allowing the nakedness of Bridgewater’s voice — at times unaccompanied — to retell this story that can never be told enough. It’s a stunning finale to one of the finest Billie Holiday homages ever recorded.
Jeff Tamarkin (Allmusic)
