Dianne Reeves was born into a musical family. Her father sang, her mother played trumpet, her uncle was a bassist and her cousin is George Duke. Although she was born in Detroit, she was raised in Denver … and in 1971, Dianne started singing and playing piano. She signed with Blue Note Records in 1987, staying with the label until 2009 when she moved over to Concord. Performance here is at the JazzBaltica Jazz Festival in 2004.
In Jazzcast #003 I pointed out the symbiotic relationship between jazz and other forms of music. On Lush Life, the second in a trilogy of 1980s jazz albums with Linda Ronstadt and Nelson Riddle, Linda temporarily abandons her pop/rock stardom in favor of more traditional fare. Her excellence in any genre becomes immediately apparent from the first few bars, with the album going Triple Platinum registering sales of over 3 million copies in the United States alone.
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