Jazz Singer Returns to C-U
It began after John Gravey, leader of the jazz band at the
University of Illinois, heard Denise "Dee Dee" Garrett sing in the late '60's at
a collegiate jazz festival at Notre Dame. She was then a freshman at Michigan
State University.
Gravey arranged a transfer for her to the UI. After coming
here, Bridgewater, who had been an English major, "just took" classes, saying
that at that point her "burning desire to be in college" flew out the window.
"I just saw Cecil in that band and I thought, 'Hmm, hmm, I'm
going to get next to that guy.' That was my intention when I came down here,
unbeknownst to anyone. I stayed in school a semester and dropped out."
She continued, though, to sing with the UI Jazz Band and with
jazz combos. She and Cecil married June 13, 1970, and moved to New York, where
they both joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band.
"That was really my leaning period, that four years I was
with Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, when Cecil was in the band, writing my arrangements,"
she said. "Singing with these hot cats! I was like 20. I was a baby."
After touring Europe with the band, Bridgewater became
obsessed with returning there. She did, working there often and living in France
from 1986 to 1999. It was then that she and her third -- and she says her last
-- husband, Jean-Marie Durand, moved to Henderson, Nev., to be near her mother.
Joining Thad Jones/Mel Lewis was her entree into the jazz
world. "Because I started out with this band and everybody knew this band, I met
and sang with everybody," she said. "It was no big deal to sing with Dexter
Gordon, no big deal to go and hang out with Dexter when he was playing at some
club. I used to sing with Sonny Rollins. We'd do society gigs in Manhattan.
"I was this little darling of all these musicians. I didn't
know this was something special. I grew up thinking everyone sang jazz, and I
thought all jazz singers scatted. I just thought they were normal things until I
got into the big world, after I stopped singing and accepted the role in 'The
Wiz.' Then I was able to pull back and see what was going on."
She almost lost that role after her second husband, Gilbert
Moses, was fired as director of the Broadway production. As a result, her role
as Glinda the Good Witch was scaled back. But she still won the Tony. And for
the girl who had grown up in Flint, Mich., being in a big musical such as "The
Wiz" was a dream come true.
"As a little girl I used to watch all these musical films
from the '30s and '40s and used to dream about being in big musical productions
and walking down staircases surrounded by gorgeous men and being lifted in the
air, and that's what happened to me in 'The Wiz.'"
Playing the lead role in "Lady Day" in the later 1980s was a
different story. "She possessed me. I was possessed by Billie."
Bridgewater said of Holiday, who was a heroin addict. "It was a very, very
freaky experience. I got so into the role I felt I was possessed by this woman.
I got very sick when I was doing the play in Paris.
"I didn't use heroin but the son of a producer who knew a lot
of heroin addicts saw me and said, 'My, God, you're going through withdrawal.' I
said, 'I don't' know. I don't understand what's going on.' We had to close down
the show for three days."
After that show ended in London in the late '80s, Bridgewater
said that it took her four months to find her own voice. "She's still with me,"
she said. "I'm inhabited by Billie and by Ella, and I always will be by Ella."
After touring for four years in support of "Dear Ella" and
hearing in Poland music by Kurt Weill, the German theater composer, Bridgewater
decided to record songs by Weill.
There subsequent album, "This is New," includes "Mack the
Knife" and "My Ship," both which Fitzgerald had sung. Cecil Bridgewater arranged
the tunes.
One of the jazz vocalist's next projects might be an album
sung entirely in French, as the Kennedy Center has booked her for a February
2004 program dedicated to French music and culture.
Earlier this week, Bridgewater was a Carnegie Hall,
introducing the classical music stars who performed in Fiddlefest, a benefit for
the Opus 118 Harlem Center for the Strings.
The energetic and versatile Bridgewater has other projects
going, including a possible return to the stage before the end of 2004. "Someone
called me recently and said, 'I'm writing you a play. I have the backers and
they really believe in you and remember you from Broadway,' It's going to blow
people away."
