MARSEILLE, France (AP)—Hospital authorities say Grammy-winning singer Al Jarreau will stay hospitalized in the French city of Marseille for three or four more days.
The Marseille Hospital Authority said July 25 that Jarreau is getting better and in good spirits but will stay in La Timone hospital for monitoring.
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| ON THE MEND—Al Jarreau, seven-time Grammy Award winner, performs during a concert at Festival Jazz des Cinq Continents in Marseille, southern France, July 21.
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Jarreau’s manager, Joe Gordon, says he will undergo tests in Marseille and “hopes to resume his tour at the end of the coming week.”
The 70-year-old Jarreau was hospitalized in the Alps July 23 after suffering breathing problems in the mountains that forced him to cancel several concerts. He was moved to Marseille by helicopter Saturday.
Gordon said the 70-year-old singer “is awake and he’s concerned” about missing concerts. When he said he wanted to eat, the doctors did a little dance, Gordon said.
“He’s only canceled one concert (due) to his health in his entire career,” Gordon, who was at Jarreau’s side, told The Associated Press in New York. But he also said, “It was life threatening” and “he’s doing well, considering.”
Gordon said the Thursday concert at a jazz festival in the French mountain town of Barcelonnette, in the southern Alps was canceled in the middle of his warmup routine.
The director of the jazz festival, Xavier Fribourg, told The AP that Jarreau was evacuated by helicopter just before the start of the concert.
A note on Jarreau’s official website said the world-acclaimed singer was in “good spirits” and “looking forward to getting back out on the road.” The note said he would perform in Nuremberg, Germany, next Thursday as scheduled.
“We hope to be able to do that,” the manager said.
The singer is on a lengthy overseas tour that takes him to far corners of Europe, Japan and back to the United States.
Jarreau, who started out in jazz before crossing over into pop and R&B, canceled two shows in Germany and another in Azerbaijan besides the one in France, his agent said.
Jarreau is one of the few artists to have won Grammys in three separate categories—jazz, pop and R&B—like Michael Jackson.
(AP Music Editor Nekesa Mumbi Moody contributed to this report.)
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