Vocalist Dianne Reeves at Telluride Jazz Celebration

This year, Telluride Jazz Celebration impresario/ Festival director Paul Machado welcomes two great female jazz vocalists to the Toshiko Akiyoshi Town Park Stage. Jackie Ryan performs Saturday night at the Nugget Theatre and again on Sunday in Town Park. And Dianne Reeves is the closing act on opening day, Friday, August 5: a good choice because Reeves has the star power and hardware (four Grammys, including the soundtrack for George Clooney’s “Good Night and Good Luck”) to deliver a very grand finale.

Dianne Reeves is widely recognized as one of jazz’s pre-eminent vocalists. Rhythmic virtuosity, improvisational prowess and original jazz and R&B stylings make the Blue Note recording artist the legitimate heir to the greats that have gone before: Ethel Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Carmen McRae.

In the 1980s, Reeves was a lead singer with Harry Belafonte. She has recorded and performed extensively with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Reeves was a featured soloist with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. She was the first Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the first singer to ever perform at the famed Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In 2007, Reeves was featured in a documentary on the all-too-brief life of Billy Strayhorn. Her  first solo album in several years, When You Know, was released in April 2008.To learn more, click the “play” button and listen to Dianne Reeves tell it like it is.