Dee Dee Bridgewater's Malian journey

After Jane Monheit's performance in Springfield, Mo., I mentioned Dee Dee Bridgewater among several underappreciated singers. Here's a chance to expand your horizons for vocal jazz.

I saw Dee Dee Bridgewater and her troupe of Western Hemispherians and Malians at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City in 2008. Her trip to Mali in 2005 to explore her roots turned into a musical revelation. This tune, "Griots (Sakodougou)," is from her album Red Earth: A Malian Journey. The Red Earth project combines her working trio with Malian singers and virtuosos of the kora, balafon, talking drum and other percussion. The soaring voices and the great musicians — especially the youngster Cherif Saumano on kora, whose plucking evoked harp, guitar, harpsichord, and piano, entirely by the power of his two thumbs — transported us to a place of spinning, floating and bouncing. Bridgewater’s scat on this tune shows how she carries a strong jazz presence as she fully throws herself into the African realm.