StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Dianne Reeves

This week, let's check out some videos featuring singer Dianne Reeves, who will perform next Saturday, February 9 at The Sheldon.

Reeves, who last year was named an NEA Jazz Master, appeared here most recently in December 2016, presenting a Christmas show at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. She's considered one of the top jazz vocalists working today, having won five Grammy Awards for "Best Jazz Vocal Album," served as the first-ever creative chair for jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and won an honorary doctorate of music from Julliard, among many other honors.

The Denver native also has something of a St. Louis connection, as she was mentored early in her career by Clark Terry, and for years has employed two musicians from here - pianist Peter Martin, who's from U City and also serves as her music director, and drummer Terreon Gully, who's from East St. Louis.

Today's collection of videos features a couple of older performances showcasing those St. Louis connections, a couple of interviews with insight into Reeves' background and creative process, and a couple of recent performances, starting up above with the first clip, which shows Reeves singing Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood" during the 2018 International Jazz Day 2018 all-star concert in Saint Petersburg, Russia, accompanied by David Goloschekin (violin), Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez (drums), Makoto Ozone (piano), and Ben Williams (bass).

After the jump, you can see a short biographical video about Reeves produced by the NEA when she was named a Jazz Master last year.

Next, there's another clip of a recent performance, in which Reeves sings "The Windmills of Your Mind" with the NYO Jazz big band, directed by trumpeter Sean Jones, as recorded in August 2018 at the Konzerthaus in Berlin, German.

The fourth video features a full set of Reeves and her working band - Martin, Gully, guitarist Romero Lubambo, and bassist Reginald Veal - in 2012 at the Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen in Germany. The fifth goes way back to show her alongside a couple of other musicians from St. Louis, saxophonist David Sanborn and singer David Peaston, singing the T-Bone Walker blues standard "Stormy Monday" in 1988 on Sanborn's NBC program Night Music.

The final video is an extended interview with Reeves, recorded in 2017 in conjunction with her concert "Dianne Reeves Sings Ella" at the Library of Congress, in which she discusses her career and and her interpretations of Ella Fitzgerald's music.

For more about Dianne Reeves, read the review of her concert in march 2018 at Wigmore Hall in London; her 2017 interview with SoundExchange.com; and the feature story about her published in 2018 on the NEA's Arts.gov site.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...