“Elemental”: Diva Dee Dee Bridgewater & Pianist Bill Charlap Headline the Tucson Jazz Festival
Nov 30, 2025 11:00AM ● By Suzie Agrillo
Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap. photo credit: Evelyn Freja
Tucson has one of the best jazz scenes in the U.S., and a hefty amount of the credit for this goes to Khris Dodge, the Executive and Artistic Director of the HSL Properties Tucson Jazz Festival. The festival is bringing international jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater to Tucson.
Bridgewater is joining forces with contemporary pianist Bill Charlap for a rare duo performance.
Over the course of a multifaceted career spanning almost six decades, Grammy and Tony Award winning jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater has ascended to the upper echelon of vocalists, putting her unique spin on standards as well as taking intrepid leaps of faith in re-envisioning jazz classics.
Grammy Award winner Bill Charlap, praised by the New York Times as “masterful” and known for collaborations with Tony Bennett, Diana Krall and Barbra Streisand, is one of today’s foremost interpreters of the Great American Songbook.
“Dee Dee Bridgewater is one of my favorite singers of all time. She’s not only an acclaimed artist; she’s also an amazing person, so I have a good feel for someone who is exceptional,” attests Charlap. “Combined, with the two of them on stage, it feels as if you’ve been invited into their living room for an intimate performance. They exude a powerful and visceral energy,” Dodge says.
The Fox Tucson Theatre provides the perfect venue for these top jazz artists to transcend the listener to an elevated and contemporary jazz experience. Embrace the force of the music at this history making show. Together, these artists will bring music from the duo’s latest album “Elemental” to life, covering everything from intimate ballads to exuberant standards with a chemistry that critics describe as “instantaneous” and “alchemical.”
The prospect of a collaboration between the two was a longshot. They had never worked together prior to their first meeting live on stage in 2019. The initial idea for the collaboration was Bridgewater’s. As is appropriate for a project that has taken on such a mystical aura, the idea arrived out of the blue. The singer explains, “I woke up one morning and a voice said, ‘Bill Charlap.’ I was really quite dumbfounded because it seemed like such an unlikely pairing for me.”
But one thing Bridgewater has learned over the course of her remarkable nearly six-decade career is to trust that voice. Her broad ranging successes speak for themselves: three GRAMMY Awards, a Tony Award, NEA Jazz Masters Fellow Award, and a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.
“My perception and my understanding of Bill changed completely after we got together. I knew he was steeped in the American Songbook, but I did not know the degree of his extreme knowledge. I was blown away by Bill’s sensitivity as a pianist, his wealth of knowledge and the references that he can call upon when he’s playing. I mean, he’s an encyclopedia. I have never before in all of my years worked with a musician with whom I could so completely relax and be myself,” Bridgewater notes.
Charlap is quick to return the compliments. “Dee Dee Bridgewater is a giant of a musician. A brilliant vocalist, but just as much an actor, just as much a storyteller, just as much a risk taker. All of that is together in equal parts, with each piece stepping out into the following spot at different moments. That makes her unlike anybody else historically,” Charlap opines.
Like a glass of fine wine, this concert will be a sublime tour-de-force, intertwining virtuosity, emotion and spontaneity into an evening that will linger long after the final note. Charlap says, “The two of us have discovered a kind of musical melding that is completely inexplicable to the untrained ear. We’ve become a gentle force of nature, and people are astounded when they hear it.”
Dee Dee Bridgewater with Bill Charlap will be performing at the Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress, on Friday, January 23, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $56 to $90. Visit FoxTucson.com.
Suzie Agrillo is a freelance writer in Tucson and a frequent contributor to Natural Awakenings. She focuses on writing about the arts, inspirational people, and the human connection. Connect at [email protected].
The Fox Tucson Theatre - 17 W Congress, Tucson, AZ
Opening: The Fox Tucson Theatre opened on April 11, 1930, as a dual vaudeville/movie house. The Fox featured a stage, full fly-loft, and dressing rooms beneath the stage. The combined ef... Read More »
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