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Dianne Reeves
In her singing, Dianne Reeves draws upon a world of influences: Africa,
Brazil, and the Caribbean; gospel and r&b; and classic and contemporary
pop. Her powerful storytelling instinct surfaced in 1982, when her
autobiographical hit Better Days conveyed the message of hope that sparks
all her work. A Blue Note/EMI recording artist since 1987, Ms. Reeves has
earned three Grammy nominations and a vast international audience her
albums (ten to date) have created. It stretches from New York to London,
Berlin to Brazil, and to Japan, where she sings regularly at the Blue Note
clubs in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka, as well as at festivals. Her 1997
return to New Morning, the preeminent jazz club of Paris, resulted in the
best-selling compact disc New Morning, issued by French Blue Note. Born in
Detroit in 1956 and raised in Denver, Dianne Reeves lost her father to
cancer when she was two. But her grandmother, mother, aunt, and sister gave
her a sense of unshakable fortitude. Music was another gift from her
family. Her father had been a singer; her mother played trumpet; an uncle,
Charles Burrell, was a bassist with the Colorado Symphony; and her cousin
is the celebrated keyboardist, composer, and arranger George Duke, who
would later become her record producer as well. As a child, Ms. Reeves
studied piano, which became the source of her rich harmonic awareness. In
junior high, she and other black children in Denver participated in one of
the country's first school bussing programs, travelling into hostile white
neighborhoods. Then thirteen, she joined other students-black, white, and
Hispanic-in trying to educate their elders through assemblies and a concert
to show how music cuts across racial boundaries. At sixteen, Ms. Reeves
sang with her high school band at a National Association of Jazz Education
convention in Chicago. One of the people who heard her was trumpeter Clark
Terry, who become one of her mentors and invited her to sing with his
all-star group. In 1976, after several years of singing in local clubs,
Dianne Reeves moved to Los Angeles. With interest in straight-ahead jazz
singing on the wane, she joined the Latin fusion group Caldera and met
keyboardist Eduardo (Eddie) del Barrio, a lasting friend with whom she has
co-written some of her most powerful songs. She also sang with Night
Flight, an experimental jazz band led by pianist Billy Childs, who became
her musical director for ten years. Ms. Reeves recorded her first two
albums-Welcome to My Love (1982) and For Every Heart (1985)-for Palo Alto.
During that time, she also wrote and recorded Better Days, a recollection
of her grandmother that she has since expanded into a gospel-influenced
narrative about her youth. In 1987 she became the first vocalist to sign
with the reactivated Blue Note label. Her recordings include Dianne Reeves
(1987), Never Too Far (1989), I Remember (1991), Art and Survival (EMI,
1994), Quiet After the Storm (1995, Grammy-nominated), The Grand Encounter
(1996), That Day (1997, also Grammy-nominated), and Rivers (1999). The
current year finds Dianne Reeves joining the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra
as a guest in several special Duke Ellington projects, including a concert
at the White House, a PBS television series, and tours of the United States
and Europe. She was also featured in a special on CBS's "Sunday Morning."
With these performances, Dianne Reeves is making her Boston Pops debut.