It’s been a little over three months since jazz/R&B diva Dianne Reeves was slated to take the stage for HSL Properties Tucson Jazz Festival — one of many events hampered by rising COVID-19 infection rates at the time.
Just as Jon Batiste made up his date with the festival and Arizona Arts Live on March 4, and Herb Alpert and Lani Hall are making good on their missed date June 5 at Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St., now it’s Reeves’ turn on Friday, May 13.
The Star spoke with Reeves in January ahead of her originally scheduled show.
As was the case with many musicians, the pandemic postponed all of her shows, with her first in-person concert coming in May 2021 at the Saratoga Jazz Festival in New York. By January, she saw early signs things were going south again; she was starting to see some gigs pushed back due to the rising omicron variant.
But the shows she was able to do, she said, were heaven-sent.
“Just having that fellowship with your musician friends and being out. Music is always a place where you can release a lot of stuff and people were really happy,” the five-time Grammy winner said. “It was kind of a party atmosphere so it was really wonderful in terms of being able to tour again.”
“For me it was like I didn’t even want to get off the stage. It was like medicine; I really needed it,” she added. “It really, really supported my hope for things to open up. OK, maybe we’re getting through this. 2020 and the beginning of 2021 was like, sheesh, what is this. So we’re out here but at the same time with so many people getting sick. Even in 2020, 2021, I didn’t have this many people who were close to me who have gotten this.”
But the beginning of 2022 had a black cloud hanging over live performances, including the Tucson Jazz Festival and overlapping Tucson Desert Song Festival. It was as if everyone was holding their collective breath waiting for the next shoe to fall.
It did.
The Jazz Festival had a number of events canceled including concerts with its three big-name headliners — Reeves, Batiste and Alpert. The song festival lost its opening concert with soprano Ailyn Pérez, who pulled out over fears she would not be able to return to Europe; and a signature recital with soprano Susanna Phillips performing the world premiere of Jocelyn Hagen’s “I Am Here,” commissioned by True Concord Voices & Orchestra. That concert was pushed back to Jan. 27, 2023 — almost exactly a year to the day when it was supposed to be performed.
During that early January conversation, Reeves said she was excited to get back out with her band to road test some of the Brazilian jazz she was working on for her latest album.
“I’m really excited to come back with my band. And they are all excited to be able to perform, as well,” she said. “When I saw that this one came up, I was like, ‘Ah, great. We’re going back to Tucson.’”
Reeves said the Brazilian jazz, like the Cuban-inspired jazz she has done in her career, takes her out of her comfort zone “and puts me in other places where I feel a charge.” Expect that charge to spark some energy in the audience, she said.
“The music is like a celebration,” Reeves said, adding that after the turmoil we had been through with the pandemic, everyone was overdue for a big party.
“2022 is the year that the dreams come true. Hopefully we are starting to move out of this craziness,” she said.
