Spend a few minutes with Steve Seifert, executive director of the Newman Center, and you walk away relishing the possibilities of this season’s offerings.
Seifert is the center’s purveyor of eclectic entertainment and he readily shares why he loves his job. He is the one who gets to choose artists, like Dianne Reeves, that the rest of us will enjoy.
Seifert has booked a year’s worth of edgy and under-the-radar performers as well as seasoned artists who need no introduction. Dianne Reeves fits into the latter group. On Saturday, she delivered a distinct and unique performance.
Reeves is Denver’s first lady of jazz. The warm and welcoming crowd at Saturday’s performance contained many longtime fans that rarely miss an opportunity to hear Reeves sing the blues. Although Reeves had performed at the Newman Center once before, she was glad to be back. “I love this theatre,” she said of Gates Hall, “It’s really wonderful.”
Like a truly accomplished performer, Reeves believes in feeling out the audience as she goes. “I never know what I’m going to sing, so people don’t know what to expect-except that they’re going to have a good time.” Reeves’ personal connection to her listeners is the reason she almost always plays to a sold-out house.
With few empty seats at Saturday night’s performance, Reeves proved her storytelling prowess once again. Just before singing The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination,” she recounted how she and a high school classmate had walked right up to the Temptations’ hotel when they played in Denver. Reeves and her classmate boldly knocked on the door and got to spend the next hour and a half talking with the famous musicians. Their conversation had a profound impact on Reeves.
Reeves recalled starting out in Denver when she was around 17.
“At a very young age, I worked in clubs around Denver with chaperones and it was a really wholesome but exciting environment.” Reeves has gone on to win four Grammys while also appearing in George Clooney’s “Good Night and Good Luck” in 2006.
In the film, she played a sultry jazz singer offering up the smoky standards that Reeves grew up on in real life. She describes her voice as “warm, broad and full of color”? just the palette needed to vocalize her romantic ballads.
There does not seem to be any slowing down for Dianne Reeves. This year has found her working on a new album slated for release in 2008 that promises new original compositions.
While Reeves will not comment on the specifics, you can sense her excitement about the album. Reeves uses her songs to tell stories that address her life in some way.
As she describes it, “my real voice is not the sound that you hear, but it’s my heart, my soul-that’s my real voice.”
