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THURSDAY NOVEMBER 10, 09:30 PM
Dianne Reeves
An overlook upon the history of jazz allows us to conclude that the musicians who achieved the highest popularity within the public were always, generically speaking, its singers. Artists such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald or Nina Simone, among others, inscribed their voices in the popular imaginary, first inside the United States of America and, later, throughout the whole world, thereby inaugurating a specific jazz sphere on a musical field that at the time was traditionally occupied more word-based musical genres such as folk music or blues, both of them posthumously captured by rock n’ roll and pop music. Considered the heiress of this legacy of powerful voices, a legacy in which we may include other influential names such as Dinah Washington, Chet Baker or Sarah Vaughn, Dianne Reeves is currently one of the most respected vocalists within the stellar landscape of contemporary North-American jazz, a reputation that has been materialized in several awards and honorific titles granted to her in the course of her forty years of musical career, including three consecutive Grammys and the attribution of the prestigious Jazz Master Award.
Born in Detroit to a family full of musical connections, Dianne Reeves was discovered by trumpeter Clark Terry, who invited the vocalist to sing in several of his ensembles, an opportunity she embraced as a means to expand her musical formation beyond the narrow frontiers of formal education. In the 1980’s, Reeves moves to Las Angeles, where she begins to collaborate with various renowned musicians from the West Coast jazz scene and also recording her first works under her own name. The reputation Reeves was able to achieve during that period rendered her the invitation to perform live with Harry Belafonte, one the icons of popular North-American music of the second half of the XXth century. In 1987, the singer from Michigan signed contract with legendary jazz label Blue Note and released an eponymous album made up of a blend of original compositions and reinterpretations of standards, and featuring some of jazz’s most epicentral names such as Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams or Freddie Hubbard, among others. Since then, Reeves has released several recordings, five of which were awarded with the Grammy for the best vocal jazz performance, and collaborated with great names of contemporary music, including, for example, saxophonist Wynton Marsalis and maestro Daniel Barenboim, as well as with prestigious North-American and European orchestras, among them the Chicago Symphonic Orchestra or the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Admired by her talents of lyrical interpretation, as well as by her remarkable ability to improvise medically and rhythmically, Dianne Reeves’s trajectory in music rendered her a prominent position on the frontlines of the tradition of narrative jazz, encompassing in its flux the different affluents of popular music of the last hundred years. Despite of a sparser activity during the third millennium, Reeves remains faithful to her mission of perpetuating a musical legacy which continues to echo an iconic presence in the contemporary landscape and which, in Guimarães, will assume the form of a quintet in which the vocalist is accompanied by a top-level ensemble of jazz musicians.
6+ years old
Dianne Reeves voice
Edward Simon piano
Romero Lubambo guitar
Reuben Rogers bass
Terreon Gully drums