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Dianne Reeves

American jazz singer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ242135
Source-derived summary

Dianne Elizabeth Reeves (born October 23, 1956) is an American jazz singer. Reeves has won five Grammy awards from a total nine nominations.

Early life and education

Dianne Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan, United States, into a musical family. Her father sang, her mother played trumpet, her uncle is bassist Charles Burrell, and her cousin was George Duke. Her father died when she was two years old, and she was raised in Denver, Colorado, by her mother, Vada Swanson, and maternal family. Reeves was raised Catholic and attended Cure D'Ars Catholic School in Denver for much of her early schooling.

Career

In 1971, Reeves started singing and playing piano. She was a member of her high-school band and while performing at a convention in Chicago was noticed by trumpeter Clark Terry, who invited her to sing with him. "He had these amazing all-star bands, but I had no idea who they all were! The thing I loved about it was the way they interacted with each other – the kind of intimate exchange that I wasn't part of.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Dianne Reeves” as american jazz singer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dianne, Reeves and American.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1956, 1971—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1956-10-23. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Dianne, Reeves and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Dianne Reeves”, the useful work is to connect “american jazz singer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q242135. VIAF identifies the subject as 85440283. The Library of Congress control number is n92038126. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956 and 1971.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Dianne Reeves”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dianne Reeves primary sources, Dianne Reeves archive and Dianne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dianne Reeves”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Dianne Reeves” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.