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Dianne Reeves

When you hear Dianne Reeves sing, you are admiring a masterpiece. This four-time Grammy Award winning vocalist is considered one of the most important contemporary jazz singers of our time.

Reeves hails from a musical family and knew that she wanted to sing while in high school. "My uncle gave me records of great singers, Sarah Vaughan, Dakota Staton, and of course Billie Holiday and I would listen to those records, and I listened to instrumentalists and instrumentalists with singers - Cannonball Adderley and Nancy Wilson," Reeves tells N'Digo. "I remember at that time, everyone said that you have to have your own approach and own style. While I love Sarah, she was the one that opened the door - in terms of letting me know what you can do with the sound of your voice, how you can change it and explore it. I am not trying to sound like her but I loved her very much, Reeves says."

In her first Blue Note album of new material in many years--and her first since providing the award-winning soundtrack to George Clooney's 2005 film, Good Night and Good Luck, the Academy Award-nominated film that chronicles Edward R. Murrow's confrontation with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The soundtrack earned Reeves her fourth "Best Jazz Vocal" Grammy in 2006. Reeves' most recent album, "When You Know," (2008), is a stunning array of old and new standards. On that album, Reeves teams once again with producer George Duke, Reeves' cousin and producer of two of her Grammy-winning albums, "In the Moment," (2001); and "The Calling," (2002).

So what is it that takes Reeves to that special place when she's performing?
"I love the music that I have selected over the years. And I am in the moment, what really sends me to a warm place, is live music, being on stage and interacting with my musicians and creating something new every night. I feel the stage is a sacred place that I have never taken for granted."

Reeves has recorded and performed extensively with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. She has also recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim, and was a featured soloist with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. She was featured in a documentary on the life of Billy Strayhorn.

Today, Dianne Reeves continues to leave audiences spellbound with her signature voice and fans can expect an aural odyssey from the jazz vocalist's next album. "I am in the process of working on a new record that has taken me all over the world - listening to a lot of different music, World Music, music from Africa, the Middle East and Tango's-mostly older things," she says. "The next record will involve those things."