Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap delight the audience with "I'm Beginning to See the Light" from the Robert N. Miner Auditorium at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco, CA, USA.
ELEMENTAL
Dee Dee Bridgewater – vocals, vocal arrangements
Bill Charlap – piano, piano arrangements
FROM DEE DEE…
The idea for this duo with Bill Charlap came to me through my spiritual voice which speaks to me
from time to time. It said simply “Bill Charlap” twice. I immediately called my booking agent, Jack
Randall, and said “I think I’m supposed to work with Bill Charlap.” He replied “Dee Dee, I
represent Bill, let me give him a call to see if he’d be interested.” Bill told Jack ‘yes.’ That was in
2019.
Bill and I rehearsed, putting a repertoire together, picking song keys, deciding song structure and
ideas January 6 & 7, 2020. I joined Bill for our first public performance, a few songs, during his
trio engagement at Smoke Jazz Club in NYC January 12, 2020. The audience reaction was most
receptive.
Our first official duo concert was February 28, 2020, at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in
Nashville, TN. The audience loved it…standing ovations. My remembrance was being terrified,
feeling exposed and extremely vulnerable, yet exhilarated by the sense of musical abandon Bill’s
accompaniment provided…we were musically in sync and that was thrilling. Then the pandemic
happened and concert dates were canceled…life as we knew it forever altered.
We began our reemergence February 15, 2021, and did 19 concerts that year…2022 saw
another 13 concert dates, allowing us to elaborate and fine-tune our musical conventions, while
2023 brought an additional 8 shows…now we were fusing, musically in each other’s heads. By
year’s end I decided to record us for posterity, to have a trace of the beautiful, symbiotic
connection we’ve made. The resulting album you have before you speaks volumes to our musical
synchronicity, the essence of Bill and Dee Dee. I hope you will enjoy our special ELEMENTAL
world.
Thank You to pianist and musical partner Bill Charlap for accepting my invitation to join me on
this journey; Tulani Bridgewater-Kowalski, my Daunager (Daughter/Manager/Co-Producer) and
the force behind this recorded collaboration; Jack Randall and The Kurland Agency, for
connecting all the booking dots; Tim Zick (TZ Mix/Recording, Mixing, FOH Engineer), who crafted
the sound every step of the way from our first performance to the studio recordings; the Sear
Sound team: Steven Sacco (Assistant Recording Engineer), Maximilian Troppe (Studio Assistant),
Jasper Leach (Studio Assistant), and Roberta Findlay (Studio Manager); Ed Wedberg (Piano Tech);
Mark Higashino (Photographer); Hirao Takaoka (Videographer); Naoki Saturai (Video Sound);
Thomas Brodin and Lucas Peixoto (Annex Agency/Album Artwork); The Bakery crew: Jett Galindo
(Mastering Engineer Wizard), Eric Boulanger (Vinyl Engineer), Peter Hewitt-Dutton (Vinyl
Engineer), Willow Edge (Assistant Engineer), Jaymes Quirino (Studio Director, The Bakery), Steve
Genewick (Dolby Atmos Engineer); Lisa Jefferson (Business Accountant).
I would like to thank each individual who joined our concert performances without knowing
what to expect, based uniquely on your knowledge of us as individual artists and curiosity about
what we could fuse together…thank you for believing in us as a unit and taking that leap of
faith. We’re here today because of you!