Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959) Receives NAACP Image Award Nomination…
Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee Receives NAACP Image Award Nomination For “Outstanding Jazz Album”
NAACP Nod Follows Recent 2011 Grammy Nomination
Los Angeles, CA. Dee Dee Bridgewater’s stunning homage to Billie Holiday, Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee, has been nominated for a 2011 NAACP Image Award in the category of “Outstanding Jazz Album.” The CD, released this past Spring on DDB Records/Emarcy/Universal, was Executive Produced by Bridgewater. The 42nd Annual NAACP Image Awards will air live Friday, March 4th, on FOX.
It was recently announced that Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee has also been nominated for a 2011 Grammy Award in the category of “Best Jazz Vocal Album.” The 53rd Annual Grammy Awards will take place Sunday, February 13th in Los Angeles.
Over
the course of a multifaceted career that has spanned four decades,
Grammy and Tony Award-winning Jazz diva Dee Dee Bridgewater has risen to
the top tier of today’s 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.
“This
album is my way of paying my respect to a vocalist who made it possible
for singers like me to carve out a career for ourselves,” says
Bridgewater, who performed the role of Holiday in the triumphant
theatrical production, Lady Day—based on the singer’s autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues—staged in Paris and London in 1986 and 1987. “I wanted Eleanora Fagan
to be something different: more modern and a celebration, not a
[recording] that goes dark and sullen and maudlin. I wanted the album to
be joyful.”
Bridgewater adds 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 up-tempo “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 double Grammy Award-winning Dear Ella, 1997), Horace Silver (Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver, 1995) and Kurt Weill (This Is New, 2002). Bridgewater takes great pride in producing each of her CD’s herself and all of them have received Grammy nominations.
But with Eleanora Fagan—the follow-up to 2007’s brilliant Red Earth: A Malian Journey
(also released via DDB Records/Emarcy/Universal) 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.”