Dee Bell
| Dee Bell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born |
July 16, 1950 Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Website |
www |
Dee Bell (born July 16, 1950, in Fort Wayne, Indiana) is an American jazz singer.
Personal life
Bell grew up in a musical family and began playing music at home. She played clarinet in the Plainfield High School band and performed in an a cappella trio from age ten through her last year of high school. She graduated from Indiana University in December 1972, lived on the edge of the Hoosier National Forest in a two-room cabin with a woodstove for heat, and was co-founder and head chef of the Earth Kitchen vegetarian restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana.
Her vocal training was with Judy Davis, who had mentored Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. She also studied, while in Bloomington, IN with a graduate student of Eileen Farrell, the opera diva, who at the time was teaching at Indiana University.
Recordings
Her debut album, Let There Be Love, with Stan Getz on saxophone and Eddie Duran on guitar, was released on the Concord Jazz label as an album for Valentine's Day 1983. The record also featured prominent Bay Area musicians Al Plank, Vince Lateano, and Dean Reilly.
Her follow-up recording in 1985 of One by One, also on Concord Jazz, featured trumpeter Tom Harrell along with Duran and Plank and other Bay Area jazz musicians. Let There Be Love was chosen as a Billboard magazine Recommended LP Jazz Pick in their March 26, 1983 issue. Bell was also nominated by Down Beat in their Jazz Critics Poll of 1984 and 1985 as "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition". BAM magazine nominated Let There Be Love as the Best Debut Album in their 1983 Awards.
Bell recorded a third album in 1990, featuring Houston Person, but when the tracks were compressed during the mastering process, the recordings of the bass were badly distorted due to a misplaced microphone. After two failed attempts to re-engineer the tapes, the project was discarded. Ater a 20-year delay and advancements in digital remastering, Sagacious Grace, was released thanks to the efforts of the late Bud Spangler and engineering wizard Dan Feizli.
Bell lost her music director of 25 years, Al Plank, prior to the release of Sagacious Grace, and hired the Brazilian Jazz Master, Marcos Silva and his trio to reinvent the music for the Grace CD release show. The concert was so well-received, that they recorded Silva.Bell.Elation for an early 2014 release. This album contains mixed genre with Brazilian swing jazz arrangements by Silva and features Andy Narell and Barry Finnerty.
Elation was followed by Lins, Lennox, & Life released in August of 2018 and featuring Erik Jekabson and Silva's Brazilian jazz piano stylings and arrangements of West Coast Cool Brazilian Swing Jazz. About this album, James Gavin, (biographer of Chet Baker, Peggy Lee, and Lena Horne and a two-time recipient of ASCAP's Deems Taylor-Virgil Thomson Award for music journalism) said, "Dee Bell is a name that all lovers of jazz singing should know - but her warm, husky, intimate, unfussy delivery, full of honesty and heart, embraces many other styles. On Lins, Lennox, & Life, Dee gives Brazilian master Ivan Lins some of the best English translations his songs have received; and she finds the jazz in Annie Lennox's intense balladry. This album is a pleasure to hear, rich in musicianship and even richer in feeling."
Randy Morse, Best of Brasil stated, "Dee Bell is not only a gifted singer; she's a brilliant lyricist!"
Bell has performed around the U.S. and internationally, appearing at festivals and on TV.
Discography
- 1983 Let There Be Love, (Concord Jazz)
- 1985 One by One, (Concord Jazz)
- 2011 Sagacious Grace, (Laser)
- 2014 Silva Bell Elation, with Marcos Silva (Laser)
- 2018 Lins, Lennox, & Life, with Marcos Silva, Erik Jekabson (Laser)
