Dee Dee Bridgewater: We exist!

Thursday, 2 July at 19.00 – Gallus Hall
Tickets (no assigned seating): presale (until 30 June): 38, 34* EUR , regular price: 42, 37* EUR
* Discounted admission prices for people younger than 25, older than 65 and pensioners

Dee Dee Bridgewater, vocals; Alexis Lombre, piano; Shirazette Tinnin, drums; Rosa Brunello, drums
(US)

From an early age, she has felt an urge to express her inner voice through performance. The moment she first stepped onto the stage, she did so with total confidence, forging her own style – uncompromising and unrestrained. Over six decades, she has moved effortlessly across genres, performing at the Sanremo Festival, recording over 20 albums, and acting in theatre and film – all by following her heart, in her own words. She has received three Grammy Awards and a Tony Award for her role as the Good Witch in the Broadway musical The Wiz.

Throughout her career, she has been driven by personal integrity, professional autonomy, and boundless creativity, and has also given a voice to the voiceless as a UN Goodwill Ambassador. Twenty years ago, she founded her own record label, DDB Records, and became a producer. She holds honorary doctorates from prestigious music universities and was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. Her musical credentials read like a who’s who of jazz royalty: Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, Ray Charles, B. B. King…

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Just as she once received advice from her role models Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Betty Carter, who taught her to be fearless and command the stage, she now passes on her experience and knowledge to younger generations. Through her Woodshed Network programme, Dee Dee has recently mentored young female jazz musicians, sharing her wisdom on surviving in the male-dominated music industry and standing up to discrimination and misogyny. Her protégées include Jazzmeia Horn and Lakecia Benjamin.
In this spirit, and as a direct response to the Gaza war, she formed the quartet We Exist!, bringing together young female musicians – pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Rosa Brunello, as well as drummers Shirazette Tinnin and Evita Polidoro. The band’s repertoire, opposing patriarchy and social injustice, is like a journey through the history of songs of rebellion and long-unheeded warnings from the past. Dee Dee Bridgewater, now a musical icon herself, pays tribute to the timeless luminaries Roberta Flack, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Abbey Lincoln, reaching for the most haunting songs in the jazz canon, such as Tryin’ Times, Danger Zone, Strange Fruit, Mississippi Goddam, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free – all the while inviting the audience to listen to the lyrics. Truly listen.