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Sara Serpa: A Musical Journey
by Hrayr Attarian
Vocalist and composer Sara Serpa is one of the most original and innovative musicians to emerge since the turn of the century. She has already made an indelible mark on the modern music scene in the span of a mere four years. Her unique style of vocalese allows her to utilize the full range of her exquisite and clear voice with the agility of an instrumentalist and stand out of the crowd as a sublime interpreter and a bold improviser. ...
Continue ReadingSara Serpa / Ran Blake: Aurora
by Hrayr Attarian
Aurora is vocalist Sara Serpa's second release with her mentor, pianist Ran Blake. A duet recital recorded live at Lisbon's Auditório da Culturges, despite being more laidback and slightly less adventurous, it is just as creative as the pair's engrossing Camera Obscura (Inner Circle, 2010). Serpa and Blake's sparse and atmospheric delivery of these dozen songs is inventive, intellectually stimulating and satisfying. The cinematic “Dr. Mabuse" features Serpa's wordless vocals, moving from wistfully contemplative to fiercely passionate, ...
Continue ReadingSara Serpa / Ran Blake: Aurora
by Eyal Hareuveni
Portuguese vocalist Sara Serp's follow-up to Camera Obscura (Inner Circle, 2010), with renowned pianist Ran Blake, retains the fresh and irreverent approach of their debut. A former student of Blake's the two never sound obvious or predictable, even when they are interpreting popular jazz standards. Their versions offer deeper and often innocent insights to some of these most memorable songs. Aurora's 12 songs were recorded live in Serpa's hometown of Lisbon, and demonstrates the duo's highly personal ...
Continue ReadingSara Serpa: Mobile
by AAJ Italy Staff
Di questo lavoro della cantante portoghese Sara Serpa, collaboratrice fra gli altri di Greg Osby, Ran Blake e Danilo Perez, colpisce immediatamente - noi italiani, almeno - la citazione da Pavese presente in seconda di copertina. Praticamente ognuno dei dieci brani che compongono Mobile, del resto, ha un aggancio letterario, da Omero a Erodoto, da Melville a Steinbeck, a tutti gli altri, compreso l'Hugo Pratt di - guarda caso - “Corto". Fa eccezione il solo “Sum Razão," fado di Fernando ...
Continue ReadingSara Serpa: Mobile
by C. Michael Bailey
Portuguese singer Sara Serpa is what is produced when the talents of Gretchen Parlato, Simin Tander and Tierney Sutton coalesce. Her voice is light and elastic, sporting a fierce intellect. Couple this with a vision/sense of humor of a Nicholas Urie and the result is a radioactive type of 21st Century Beat Poetry. Like Urie and his lyric book sources Excerpts From An Online Dating Service (Red Piano, 2009)--with text from the same--and My Garden (Red Piano, 2011), drawn from ...
Continue ReadingSara Serpa: Praia
by Phil DiPietro
Sara Serpa is a vocalist wielding an instrument as favorably unadorned and pure as any in jazz. She's the freshest vocalist on the scene at the moment, not just because she's new to it at age 28. It's certainly not because of the way she delivers a lyric, since there usually aren't any. Being from Portugal is also irrelevant, for like much of the great jazz coming our way in the past few years from Lisbon, there is nothing overtly ...
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