Dee Dee Bridgewater channels Billie Holiday

The lights of Manhattan glittered in the background, as jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater set her sights on bass player Christian McBride. Cooing, crooning and creeping toward him on the stage, she sang an up-tempo, sexually suggestive blues, moaning “Oooh” and “Aaah” as an erotic tension built, stopping just short of physical contact.

It was a trademark moment for one of the jazz world’s most celebrated divas, but it was also incongruous: Bridgewater had just sung “Mother’s Son in Law,” a tune made famous by Billie Holiday, and the rest of her songs -- including “Good Morning Heartache,” “All of Me” and “God Bless the Child” -- were also immortalized by the iconic singer. Holiday, who died tragically at 44, was known for her muted, introspective voice and reserved stage presence. Bridgewater’s booming instrument and kinetic energy seemed strangely at odds with the legend she was invoking. Was this a case of mistaken jazz identity?

“Not at all,” said the Grammy and Tony award-winning artist, who will be bringing her Holiday tribute to Disney Hall on Sunday (also on the bill will be jazz legend Al Jarreau; the two will perform separate sets). For a woman whose stage presence can be smoldering, and whose band members often don’t know what to expect during a live performance, she was low-key and relaxed as she sat down to lunch at a midtown Manhattan hotel the day after her show at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room.

“I thought I’d take a risk and show that Billie Holiday was a whole woman, not this dark, depressing victim who gets portrayed in a maudlin and stark way,” said Bridgewater, who also hosts NPR’s “Jazz Set” series. “Billie had a great sense of humor, she was quick and clever. She could tell the dirtiest jokes and curse like a sailor. If she and her band parked somewhere on the road for a week, she’d cook for everybody. She was a real, flesh-and-blood person.”

To prove her point, the singer has just released “Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee Bridgewater” on DDB Records. It’s clear from the very first note that she’s exploring her own take on Holiday, instead of echoing a famous sound. Although the title refers to Holiday’s real name, the mood is all Dee Dee, offering lively, modern reinterpretations of familiar musical material.

“She’s a complete free spirit when she’s up there, and the music comes so naturally,” said Edsel Gomez, who plays piano on her new album and arranged the songs. “We just follow her very carefully, because some nights you never know where she’s going next, and the whole experience is full of surprises.”

Bridgewater, 59, is clearly on a mission. But it’s been a personal odyssey as well as an artistic gamble. Once again, as she has so many times before in her singing career, she’s swimming against the tide.

Some 25 years ago, Bridgewater began performing “Lady Day,” a two-act show written by Stephen Stahl that was based on Holiday’s autobiography. The critically praised production was staged first in Paris, where Bridgewater had recently moved, and then in London. Her portrayal, which included a conscious effort to recapture the sound of Holiday’s singing and speaking voice, told the story of a rehearsal and one of the last shows she performed, just before her death in 1959.

“Lady Day” was an edgy, no-holds-barred portrait of an artist descending into her final days, alone, despairing and wounded. Not surprisingly, Bridgewater’s performance took an emotional toll on her.

“I got a little possessed,” she said, shuddering at the memory. “At one point, she’s doing some coke and struggling with the effect of taking drugs. And there was one night when I started to get sick in the second act as if I was going through heroin withdrawal. I got nauseous and sweaty, I felt like I could start to throw up, and got very scared.

“I’ve been greatly influenced by Billie Holiday, perhaps more than most people,” Bridgewater said. “But at some point I couldn’t keep doing this. I wanted to keep her creative flame alive, but I also had to recover my own sense of who I was. That’s been hugely important to me ever since I began my singing career.”

Born in Memphis, Tenn., Bridgewater believed at an early age that she would become a singer -- at 7, to be precise, when she would pose in the bathroom mirror and sing the Nancy Wilson songs her parents played. Her father was a trumpet player and band leader, and the family moved to Flint, Mich., where he taught at a local high school. Dee Dee formed a Motown-influenced vocal trio with two other high school girls and then began singing jazz with several groups.

She met her first husband, Cecil Bridgewater, playing in a jazz band, and the couple soon moved to New York. She made her debut there in 1970 as the lead vocalist for the premier jazz orchestra led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis.

Bridgewater recorded and toured with the group, but jumped at the chance in 1974 to join the Broadway cast of “The Wiz,” the African American musical version of “The Wizard of Oz.” She won a Tony award for her portrayal of Glinda the Good Witch, and also performed in “Sophisticated Ladies” and other shows. Her career seemed poised to take off, but an Elektra records contract proved disappointing. The label tried to market her as a R&B singer, a niche she didn’t enjoy.

Bucking commercial pressures and yearning for artistic freedom, Bridgewater moved to Paris in the early 1980s. She found the recognition as a jazz singer she’d been craving, recording a series of well-received albums. She also retained her dramatic roots, becoming the first African American woman to play Sally Bowles in “Cabaret,” and also had a French TV show. She moved back to the U.S. in 2001 to care for her ailing mother near Las Vegas, where she now lives.

Bridgewater had originally planned to release her new album as a package, along with a recording of “Lady Day.” But her plans to mount a new production didn’t come together, and Universal Music released her solo record. The singer, who has been married three times, recently shaved her head as a symbol of the new personal and creative freedom she enjoys.

“I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry about your cancer,’ and I’ve had Asians come up to me and ask if I’m a Buddhist monk,” she said, laughing. “To me, it’s just freedom.”

She’s grappling with bigger issues, as her current tour continues. Toward the end of her set, Bridgewater waits for the crowd to hush and then sings “Strange Fruit,” the powerful song about the lynching of blacks in the South that Holiday made world-famous.

The song is so wrenching, she often decides in the middle of a show whether to perform it. Singing it in New York was an easy decision, Bridgewater said, but there have been some Southern cities on her tour where she has chosen not to at the last minute. The mood just wasn’t right.

“I’m paying tribute to Billie’s most famous song, but I’m also trying to be myself,” she explained. “This is still a work in progress, and that’s what I want my life to be. I want to die as a work in progress.”

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