The diverse career of Grammy and Tony Award-winning jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater spans four decades. She has redefined jazz standards and won three Grammy Awards, most recently for Best Jazz Vocal Album for ‘Eleanora Fagan (1915–1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee’. Her first professional experience was as a member of the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, and throughout the 1970s she performed with jazz notables Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie and others. After a foray into the pop world during the 1980s, she relocated to Paris and began to turn her attention back to jazz.

She began self-producing in 1993 and created DDB Records in 2006. Her recordings, including the wildly successful double Grammy Award-winning tribute to Ella Fitzgerald ‘Dear Ella’, have met with critical acclaim. She also pursued a parallel career in musical theatre, winning a Tony Award for her role as Glinda in ‘The Wiz’ and a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for ‘Lady Day’. She was also the host of the NPR programme ‘JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater’.

As a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), she continues to appeal for international solidarity to finance global grassroots projects in the fight against world hunger. Her charitable contributions were acknowledged in 2017 with an NEA Jazz Masters Fellows Award and the ASCAP Foundation Champions Award. In 2018, she was bestowed with the Doris Duke Artist Award and was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame the following year, which also saw the launching of The Woodshed Network in support of women in jazz.

She hosted NEA Jazz Masters virtual tribute concerts in 2020 and 2021 and the inaugural Jazz Music Awards in 2022. Her efforts continued in 2023 at the helm of The Woodshed Network, and she embarked on world tours that year with her big band, her quartet and in duo with pianist Bill Charlap.