Decades before the rise of jazz hands, there were jazz eyebrows, whose rapid, expressive dips and swoons caused musicians to develop debilitating facial cramps. Revel in the far more graceful age of modern jazz. For $20, you get an orchestra-level seat to jazz legend Dianne Reeves' performance on March 13 at the grand Luckman Fine Arts Complex. The performance starts at 8 p.m. in the 1,152-seat theater, located at California State University.
On this night only Dianne Reeves belts it out on one of the largest, most star-strut-upon stages in Los Angeles. Orchestra-level seats place you right up front (seating is anything below the balcony section), close enough to feel all of the soulful notes roar. Reeves, a musical titan, part R&B star, part storyteller, and pure jazz from voice to toe, improvises and revises the genre's tradition, singing always her present moment's gospel. She has earned so many Grammys and other shiny accolades that she donates them to children to fill up their birthday piñatas. Her eclectic career defies simplistic labels: she sung the soundtrack to period-piece heavyweight Good Night and Good Luck, closed the 2002 winter Olympic games, and broke through a seemingly impassable cultural barrier by being the first jazz singer to perform in the Arab kingdom of Qatar. With a voice that holds more soul than purgatory, it's an evening not be missed.
Reviews
Dianne Reeves was on the May 2008 cover of Jazz Times in addition to being featured multiple times in the magazine, and you can read her biography on All About Jazz here:
- Applying Darwinian principles to jazz singing, Dianne Reeves represents the survival of the fittest. Unravel her musical DNA and you’d discover the dexterity of her hero Sarah Vaughan, the disciplined integrity of Carmen McRae and the effusive warmth of Ella Fitzgerald. – Christopher Loudon, Jazz Times
- [A Little Moonlight] garnered a Grammy award for Reeves in 2003 in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category, her third consecutive album to win that award, making her the first singer to do so in any vocal category. The film soundtrack also won a Grammy, in 2005, but Reeves is clearly happy to have been back in the studio for the new album with her longtime producer—and cousin—pianist George Duke. – Don Heckman, Jazz Times