In 2004, she visited the country, accompanied by her French husband, Jean-Marie Durand, and so-called musical chaperone Chieck Tidiane Seck, who introduced her to the Malian singers and musicians who appear on her latest album, Red Earth: A Malian Journey.

'I came away feeling that Mali is my spiritual home, my African roots, and after that I decided that I'd do my African project, which had no focal point until then, combining the tradition of Malian music and the jazz tradition,' she says.

Most of the songs on the album were composed by Malian artists. But there's also a Bridgewater original (Meanwhile, which she wrote with regular pianist Edsel Gomez) and four classic jazz tunes - Oscar Brown Jnr and Mongo Santamaria's Afro Blue, Nina Simone's Four Women, Wayne Shorter's Footprints and Eugene McDaniels' Compared To What?.

Bridgewater wrote thoughtful new lyrics for Footprints, retitled Long Time Ago on the album at Shorter's request to avoid confusion with other versions of the composition. She also wrote new English lyrics for the Malian tunes.

'It's the first time I've written so many lyrics, but as I was doing a number of duets and all of the Malian singers were singing in either Bambara or Malinke, I thought I should do some kind of lyric which would tell a similar story without being an exact translation. So that's what I did. It's not something new for me, but it's new for me in the realm of jazz. I wrote lyrics when I did pop music.'

Bridgewater's passionate struggle against injustice and inequality, reflected in her role as an ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, also found a voice in the music. Many of the Malian songs have a social or political protest theme, as do Four Women and Compared to What?, which was a protest hit for Les McCann during the Vietnam war.

'The world hasn't really changed much from back then, when Eugene McDaniels wrote those lyrics,' Bridgewater says. 'I asked Edsel if he thought he could do something with the groove so we could include some of the traditional Malian instruments, and he did, and found the right key for the instruments and me vocally, and that's how it came to be. People go crazy when we do that song.'

Critically, the album - which signals a new direction for the singer - has been well received, as have concerts featuring the songs. 'I'm very pleased,' she says. 'The live shows have been amazing and it has been a life-changing experience for me, finding this country and this music. It makes me feel complete. I feel whole after doing this project, and I've found a kind of peace. I feel that I want to pursue Malian culture, get to know it better, and work more with the musicians.'

Although songs from the album will feature in the Macau performance, many can't be performed effectively without the Malian singers, so the concert will feature music from Bridgewater's past two albums, J'ai Deux Amours (2005), a collection of French songs, and This is New, a 2002 CD of Kurt Weill tunes that represented a change of direction after several years of touring with Dear Ella, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald that she performed at the 2003 Hong Kong Arts Festival.

'It was my way of easing out of the Ella Fitzgerald period. That album got the best reviews in the US of all my album projects. It got flat-out raves, and the record company did flat-out nothing. But I knew after that album that I was being watched and listened to, and that I was an influence, because several people started doing Kurt Weill, including Tony Bennett. He did Lost in the Stars, which I'm sure he would never have thought of doing had I not done this album.'

To critics and audiences, Bridgewater singing Weill was a revelation. 'His music was very sensual to me, the way the melodies were written, and all the lyricists who worked with him had kind of grasped that sensuality, even though the stories they were telling were to do with theatrical productions. I thought, 'Isn't it interesting that people have kept it so square and Germanic? It needs guitar and percussion and other kinds of rhythm'. I thought, 'I can do a songbook, like Ella did', but another composer, not one that she'd done, so I could start separating myself.'

Although the performance has been promoted as being centred on the French songs on J'ai Deux Amours, Bridgewater says the set will be broader and decided on the night. 'I decide with each show what I'll do, but for this series of concerts [the tour also takes in Japan and Taiwan] I was asked to do predominantly J'ai Deux Amours and songs from This Is New, and some from Red Earth, too. We'll have fun, and I hope the public will have fun hearing it. That's always my goal.'

Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sat, 8pm, Grand Auditorium, Macau Cultural Centre, Av. Xian Xing Hai, 150 patacas, 200 patacas, 250 patacas, macauticket.com. Inquiries: (853) 2870 0699