Denise "Dee Dee" Garrett, was born in Memphis, May 27, 1950 and began performing as a jazz vocalist in the late '60s when she toured the USSR with the big band of the University of Illinois. She married Cecil Bridgewater in 1970 and moved to New York. They were divorced in the mid-1970s. She appeared in Paris and London in the principal role of Lady Day, a play about the life of Billie Holiday. She has toured Asia, with a band that included Clark Terry, James Moody, Jimmy McGriff, and Grady Tate. She has worked in the pop genre, but is best known for her jazz stylings.