“The most admired jazz diva since the heyday of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday,” (New York Times) five-time GRAMMY winner and 2018 NEA Jazz Master Dianne Reeves is jazz’s greatest living vocalist — an artist who embodies the music’s enduring values of elegance, class and improvisational poise.

Her string of GRAMMYs includes an unprecedented three consecutive Best Jazz Vocal Performance awards and another for her contributions to the soundtrack of George Clooney’s film Good Night and Good Luck. She’s a performer with a gift for imbuing any performance space with the intimacy of a living room, and her 2015 Concord Records debut, Beautiful Life, won the GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album, melding jazz with elements of R&B, pop and Latin music.

Born in Detroit and raised in Denver, Colorado, Reeves became interested in music as a result of her family’s rich musical atmosphere and growing up in an era where musical boundaries we...

“The most admired jazz diva since the heyday of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday,” (New York Times) five-time GRAMMY winner and 2018 NEA Jazz Master Dianne Reeves is jazz’s greatest living vocalist — an artist who embodies the music’s enduring values of elegance, class and improvisational poise.

Her string of GRAMMYs includes an unprecedented three consecutive Best Jazz Vocal Performance awards and another for her contributions to the soundtrack of George Clooney’s film Good Night and Good Luck. She’s a performer with a gift for imbuing any performance space with the intimacy of a living room, and her 2015 Concord Records debut, Beautiful Life, won the GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album, melding jazz with elements of R&B, pop and Latin music.

Born in Detroit and raised in Denver, Colorado, Reeves became interested in music as a result of her family’s rich musical atmosphere and growing up in an era where musical boundaries were less rigid than they are today. She was introduced to jazz through her uncle, Charles Burrell, a classical and jazz bassist, who gave her lots of records, including those by an early influence, Sarah Vaughan. She began singing and playing piano at age 12 under the mentorship of her choir teacher, Bennie Williams, and became a member of her high school jazz band. Upon winning a national competition, the band traveled to Chicago in 1973 to perform at the National Association of Jazz Educators Conference, and she came to the attention of Clark Terry, who hired her to sing with him later that year.

In 1977, Reeves moved to Los Angeles to pursue a musical career. Founding members of Earth, Wind of Fire and fellow Denver denizens, Philip Bailey and Larry Dunn, coaxed Reeves to come to LA where she immediately found a great deal of session work waiting for her. She was featured in the band Caldera with Eduardo del Barrio, co-founded the fusion group Night Flight with Billy Childs, and toured extensively with Sergio Mendes.

In 1981, she recorded her first album for Palo Alto Records. In 1983 Reeves moved to New York after she was invited to tour as the featured principal voice with Harry Belafonte, who presented Reeves to the world. In 1987, she was signed to Blue Note Records, whereupon she had her cousin, keyboard pioneer and jazz great George Duke, produce the first of many of her albums.

Stretching across genres, she performed with Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Barenboim as well as with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. She has also recorded and performed as featured soloist with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. In 2002, she became the first creative chair for jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a position designed to build the organization’s jazz presence in the community—in which it has greatly succeeded. Reeves was also featured in George Clooney’s acclaimed 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck, whose soundtrack provided Reeves with the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.

In recent years Reeves has toured the world in a variety of contexts including “Sing the Truth,” a musical celebration of Nina Simone which also featured Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo. She performed at the White House on multiple occasions including President Obama's State Dinner for the President of China as well as the Governors’ Ball.

Reeves’ most recent release Beautiful Life, features Gregory Porter, Robert Glasper, Lalah Hathaway and Esperanza Spalding. Produced by Terri Lyne Carrington, Beautiful Life won the 2015 Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.

Reeves has won five Grammys to date, including the award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for three consecutive recordings. She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music and the Juilliard School. In 2018 the National Endowment for the Arts designated Reeves a Jazz Master — the highest honor the United States bestows on jazz artists.
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