Dee Bell

Trident Alumni,

You’re all welcome to gather together for memories on 9th July 2022, 8p, at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, a few doors down from where Richard’s Therapy office was located. It is a Brazilian Swing Jazz Show — sorry, not rock n’ roll but still danceable!

Richard hired me to waitress in June, in, I think 1973. I used to sit in and sing with the Eddie Duran trio after my shift and we made 2 Concord Jazz recordings together.  The story of my meeting Eddie at the bar after hours, and after singing Happy Birthday to a fellow waitress, became legendary on the back liner notes of our first Concord album with Stan Getz.

I was the record librarian for the big LP jukebox and learned songs while refiling them up in the office across the street. I thought it was brilliant that all the records were color-coded: red (hot rock) to turn tables quickly, yellow for transitions, and green (mellow jazz and rock ballads) to keep folks in their seats drinking and snacking. It worked!!

Yes tickets for the show, but you are all welcome to use this as a reunion of sorts if so inclined.

The Band: Marcos Silva (played with Flora Purim, Toninho Horta, and more) on keyboards; Richard Lindsey, bass (played in 2 International NY bands and in films); Kelly Fasman, drums (has played with Kenny Loggins).

We would love to see you!

A handful of us, Kevin (Norene), Jane (Carol) Hofer, Susan Holsapple, Lavern Wenninger, and sometimes Lynnie Lewis have an ongoing Friday night Zoomtini, and Susan thought the Trident alumni might have an interest in coming to the show. www.ThrockmortonTheatre.org 

A dusky vocalist whose warm sound evokes the breezy sophistication of ‚50s West Coast jazz, Dee Bell first came to the public‘s attention with her 1982 debut, Let There Be Love, featuring legendary saxophonist Stan Getz. A regular presence in the Bay Area, Bell spent several years away from performing before returning to consistent work in the 2010s. In 2014, she debuted her ongoing collaboration with Brazilian pianist Marcos Silva on Silva Bell Elation.

Born in 1950 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Bell was encouraged to play music from a young age and started out on clarinet. She also sang, and from age ten onward performed in an a cappella trio. After high school, she attended Indiana University, where she earned her bachelor of science in arts education. While there, she further honed her vocal skills by studying with noted opera singer Eileen Farrell. Interested in nutrition, she initially pivoted away from the arts, instead of founding the Earth Kitchen vegetarian restaurant in 1972. During this period, she lived in a two-room cabin on the edge of the Hoosier National Forest, where she often spent her off-hours singing outdoors. In 1978, she moved to Northern California with hopes of pursuing her singing career. It was there while waitressing at the TRIDENT, a Sausalito restaurant on the San Francisco Bay, that she befriended jazz guitarist Eddie Duran and began sitting in with his trio. Around the same time, a chance encounter with Stan Getz at the famed Keystone Korner nightclub led to Bell recording her debut album, Let There Be Love. Released on Concord in 1982, the album showcased Bell alongside Getz and Duran. A second album, One by One, followed in 1984 and featured a guest appearance by trumpeter Tom Harrell.

While Bell enjoyed a steady flow of gigs and a loyal following, she still made ends meet by working a day job at an ad agency. In 1990, she planned on releasing her third album, Sagacious Grace, featuring saxophonist Houston Person. However, a recording glitch discovered during mastering rendered the album unreleasable. Over the next decade, Bell slowly moved away from performing, balancing the occasional live show with raising her son and working as a children‘s music teacher. It would be over 20 years before she returned to more active performing. By then, advancements in digital remastering allowed the Sagacious Grace tapes to be salvaged, and Bell finally issued the album in 2011.

Around this time, while performing at a tribute to longtime Bay Area jazz publicist Merrilee Trost, Bell caught the ear of Brazilian-born multi-instrumentalist Marcos Silva. She had lost her longtime music director, Al Plank, to cancer in 2003 and was looking to put together a new project. The duo struck up a friendship and collaborated on the 2014 album Silva Bell Elation, which found them reinterpreting standards, pop tunes, and Brazilian songs. In 2018, Bell and Silva returned with Lins, Lennox, & Life, another set of Brazilian-infused jazz, featuring guest trumpeter Erik Jekabson.
~ Matt Collar
Apple Music