Born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, Tennessee, she grew up in Flint, Michigan. Her father, Matthew Garrett, was a jazz trumpeter and teacher at Manassas High School, and through his playing, Denise was exposed to jazz early on. At the age of sixteen, she was a member of a rock and rhythm'n'blues trio, singing in clubs in Michigan. At 18, she studied at Michigan State University before she went to the University of Illinois. With their jazz band, she toured the Soviet Union in 1969. The next year, she met trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, and after their marriage, they moved to New York City, where Cecil played in Horace Silver's band.
In 1971, Dee Dee Bridgewater joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra as the lead vocalist. The next years marked the beginning of her jazz career, and she performed with many of the great jazz musicians of the time, such as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, and others. In 1974, her first own album, entitled Afro Blue, appeared, and she also performed on Broadway in the musical The Wiz. For her role as Glinda the Good Witch she won a Tony Award in 1975 as "best-featured actress", and the musical also won the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.
She subsequently appeared in several other stage productions. After touring France in 1984 with the musical Sophisticated Ladies, she moved to Paris in 1986. The same year saw her in Lady Day as Billie Holliday, for which role she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she returned from the world of musical to jazz. She performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1990, and four years later, she finally collaborated with Horace Silver, whom she had admired for a long time, and released the album Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver. Her 1997 tribute album Dear Ella won her the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and the 1998 album Live at Yoshi's was also worth a Grammy nomination. She has also explored on This is New the songs of Kurt Weill, and, on her latest album J'ai Deux Amours, the French Classics.
Dee Dee Bridgewater is the first American to be inducted to the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie. She has received the Award of Arts and Letters in France.
Dee Dee Bridgewater is mother to three children, Tulani Bridgewater (from her marriage to Cecil Bridgewater), China Moses (from her marriage to theater, film and television director Gilbert Moses) and Gabriel Durand (from her current marriage to French concert promoter Jean-Marie Durand).
How High The Moon
Dee Dee Bridgewater Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
How faint the tune
Somewhere there's heaven
How high the moon
There is no moon above
When love is far away too
Till it comes true
That you love me as I love you
Somewhere there's music
How near, how far
Somewhere there's heaven
It's where you are
The darkest night would shine
If you would come to me soon
Until you will, how still my heart
How high the moon
Somewhere there's music
How faint the tune
Somewhere there's heaven
How high the moon
The darkest night would shine
If you would come to me soon
Until you will, how still my heart
How high the moon
Dee Dee Bridgewater's song How High The Moon is a classic jazz tune that captures the essence of romantic longing and the power of music to transport the soul. The opening lines "Somewhere there's music, how faint the tune" evoke a sense of mystery and magic, as if the music is a distant, tantalizing whisper that beckons the listener to seek it out. The lyrics continue to build on this theme of elusive beauty, with the phrase "Somewhere there's heaven, how high the moon" suggesting that this music is not just any ordinary sound, but something transcendent and celestial.
The second stanza reinforces the idea that the music is tied to the object of the singer's affection, with the line "Somewhere there's heaven, it's where you are" expressing the idea that the lover is the very embodiment of this beautiful music. The song also acknowledges the pain of unrequited love, with the verse "There is no moon above, when love is far away too, till it comes true, that you love me as I love you" conveying the sense of emptiness and longing that can accompany romantic rejection.
Overall, the lyrics of How High The Moon are a powerful testament to the transformative power of music, and the way it can elevate us above the mundane world and transport us to a higher realm of beauty, joy and love.
Line by Line Meaning
Somewhere there's music
There is music playing where someone is, but we don't know where exactly
How faint the tune
The music is not loud, and it's barely audible
Somewhere there's heaven
There is a place that feels like heaven, but we don't know where it is
How high the moon
This heaven-like place is very high and hard to reach; almost unattainable
There is no moon above
The actual moon in the sky is not present
When love is far away too
When love is not present, the moon disappears from our hearts as well
Till it comes true
We must wait for love to come back to us in order to feel complete again
That you love me as I love you
The love referred to here is mutual, and both parties must feel the same way for it to be true love
How near, how far
This heaven is both near and far at the same time
It's where you are
The heaven-like place is wherever the person being addressed is, because they bring happiness and love
The darkest night would shine
Even the darkest night would seem bright and full of light if the person being addressed was near
If you would come to me soon
The hope is that the person being addressed will come soon, making everything better
Until you will, how still my heart
Until the person being addressed comes back, the singer's heart will feel empty and still
How high the moon
This line is repeated to emphasize the importance of this unattainable heaven-like place and how desperately the singer wants to be there with the person they love.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Morgan Lewis, Nancy Hamilton
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Vic Glazer
I had...and lost... this album. If nothing else, it shows Dee Dee's voice relatively early in her career. She was still doing bebop type stuff then. And, in my opinion, she never sounded better....before or since.
Thank you for these posts. I listen to them often.