Jazz and Grammy and Tony award-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater will be the featured performer for the 39th annual Alcorn State University Jazz Festival April 13 at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

The festival, which features performances by high school, community college and university jazz bands and a concert by the featured performer, is free. This year’s festival was expected to feature jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis, but Marsalis had to cancel his appearance because of illness.

“Dee Dee Bridgewater is probably one of the greatest living jazz singers right now,” said festival director Dr. Davis Miller.

The festival begins at 9 a.m. with a performance by the Warren Central High School jazz band and ends at with the concert by Bridgewater and her quartet starting at 8 p.m.

“We’ve got 11 bands playing,” Miller said. “We’ve got several high schools playing, some community college bands and several universities coming, and the farthest away is from Southern (University) in Baton Rouge. They’re the only ones from out of state that we have this year, and that’s rare.

“We’ve had bands come from Dallas (Texas) and before that Houston, but this year they’re all close in.”

The bands will play until 3:30 p.m. and Bridgewater will hold a workshop at 4 p.m. followed by a performance by the jazz educators at 7 p.m.

Bridgewater’s career has bridged musical genres. She earned her first professional experience as a member of the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Louis Big Band, and throughout the 70s she performed with such jazz notables as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie.

After moving into the pop world during the 1980s, she relocated to Paris and began to turn her attention back to jazz. Signing with Universal Music Group as a producer, she released a series of critically acclaimed titles beginning with “Keeping Tradition” in 1993.

All but one, including her wildly successful double Grammy Award-winning tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, “Dear Ella,” has received Grammy nominations. She won a Tony Award for her role as “Glinda” in “The Wiz” in 1975. She recently completed a run as the lead role of Billie Holiday in the off-Broadway production of “Lady Day.”

Her other theatrical credits include “Sophisticated Ladies,” “Black Ballad,” “Carmen” and “Cabaret.”