Dee Dee Bridgewater Returns to Australia for October 2026 Jazz Festival Tour
The multiple Grammy and Tony Award winner reflects on a career spanning five decades, unforgettable encounters with jazz icons, and the songs closest to her heart. Over her career, she has also worked in acting and broadcasting and founded her own record label, while sharing stages with artists including Max Roach and Dexter Gordon.
Bridgewater begins her three-city tour at the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival on October 22, 2026. She then performs at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival on October 24, followed by a final appearance at the Perth International Jazz Festival on October 27.
Reflections on Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie
During her early years in New York with her first husband, Cecil Bridgewater, the vocalist occasionally received phone calls from tenor saxophone pioneer Sonny Rollins. Bridgewater recalls Rollins inviting her to sing afternoon shows for a New York jazz society, responding to his invitation by thinking, Of course I’ll sing with Sonny Rollins! Are you kidding?
She describes Rollins as a remarkably nice and unpretentious person who earned his reputation as a saxophone colossus from the 1950s until his death in 2026, noting his towering figure and bellowing brilliance on the tenor.
Bridgewater also shares fond memories of working with Dizzy Gillespie, noting his penchant for humor. She describes how Gillespie would blow those cheeks up and look like a puffer fish, adding that all those notes would come out and they had so much fun together with him acting as a jokester offstage.
“Here’s That Rainy Day” and Personal Significance
The vocalist highlights Johnny Burke’s “Here’s That Rainy Day,” a ballad she has sung since she began singing professionally with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. She recently returned to the song after receiving news that a former close companion had passed away. She realized that she had not been brave enough to go with this love that they both felt, leaving her with a big tinge of regret that now colors her interpretation of the song.
Business Advice for the Next Generation of Musicians
Reflecting on what sustains her, Bridgewater describes jazz as complete freedom of speech and expression that allows artists to improvise and reinvent music nightly. For aspiring musicians and young women entering the industry as instrumentalists, vocalists, or sound engineers, she stresses the importance of gathering knowledge about the business side of music. She advises newcomers to learn how to read contracts, know their rights, and create safe spaces to produce their best possible work.
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