Ithamara Koorax

Ithamara Koorax (born April 28, 1965) is a Brazilian jazz and pop singer. For several years, she was voted one of the best jazz singers of the world by DownBeat Readers Polls. In 2008 and 2009, Koorax placed third on the "Female Vocalist" category on the 73rd DownBeat Readers Polls, with Diana Krall on the first place and Cassandra Wilson on second, (DownBeat's December 2008 issue, page 44), as well as on the 74th Annual Readers Poll (December 2009 issue, page 42).

Back in 2002, Koorax had already placed fourth in the 67th Annual DownBeat Readers Poll (December 2002 issue, page 56).

Koorax once again appeared many times as one of the top singers from the 65th DownBeat Readers Poll (December 2000, page 54), to the 77th Annual Readers Poll (category Female Vocalist, page 60) , receiving similar acclaim in magazines from the UK (Jazz Journal), France (Jazz Hot), Japan (Swing Journal), Korea (Jazz People) and Switzerland (Jazz 'n' More), among others. In the January 2012 issue of DownBeat magazine (page 48, list of "Best CDs of 2011", her album "O Grande Amor", recorded in Europe with the Peter Scharli Trio, was voted one of the best releases of 2011, receiving a four and one half raving review. In the January 2008 issue of DownBeat (page 54, list "Best CDs of 2007"), her "Brazilian Butterfly" album was voted one of best releases of 2007, receiving a 4-star review.

She was born to a family of Polish Jews who fled Europe during World War II. In her youth Koorax studied piano, opera, and classical music while listening to her parents' collection of Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, and Teddy Wilson. For influences she has cited Elizete Cardoso, Elis Regina, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, and Flora Purim, particularly Purim's album Stories to Tell, which inspired her choice of careers.

When she was eighteen years old, she worked as a backup singer for commercials and for pop stars in Brazil. Among those artists were Tim Maia and Vicente Viola.

She has recorded solo albums for the IRMA, Milestone, Mercury, EMI, JVC, King, Huks and Motéma labels, besides fourteen soundtracks for movies and TV series, and also took part in more than 200 special projects and compilations.

Koorax has worked with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa, Ron Carter, Larry Coryell, Elizeth Cardoso, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John McLaughlin, Sadao Watanabe, Hermeto Pascoal, Marcos Valle, Peter Scharli, Jay Berliner, Edu Lobo, Martinho da Vila, Jürgen Friedrich, Claus Ogerman, Dave Brubeck, João Donato, Dom Um Romão, Thiago de Mello, Mario Castro-Neves, Raul de Souza, Chris Conway, Eumir Deodato, Lou Volpe, Laudir de Oliveira, Rodgers Grant, Gil Goldstein, Art Farmer, Eddie Gomez, the groups Azymuth, Gazzara and Os Cariocas, the big bands Amazon and Rio Jazz Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestras "Petrobras" and "Jazz Sinfonica".

From 1990 to 2003, Koorax record over 10 songs for the soundtracks of Brazilian TV soap operas such as Riacho Doce (1990), Araponga (1991), Pedra Sobre Pedra (1992), Renascer (1993), Fera Ferida (1994), Cara & Cora (1995), Estrela Guia (2001, singing the main theme, "Cristal", which became a radio hit in Brazil) and Celebridade (2003, for which she recorded a previously unreleased song written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, "Absolut Lee"), and O Rico e O Lázaro (2019), among others.

Koorax also recorded the soundtracks for four films directed by movie director Silvio Tendler: Glauber, O Filme - Labirinto do Brasil (2003), JK - O Menino Que Sonhou Um País (2002), Tzedaká - 80 Anos do Froein Farain (2003), Marighella - Retrato Falado do Guerilheiro (2001). Koorax also sings on the soundtracks of Mãos de Afeto (1990, directed by Gilberto Gouma), Policarpo Quaresma - Herói do Brasil (1997, directed by Paulo Thiago), and Apenas Meninas (2021), directed by Bianca Lenti for HBO.

Koorax's debut solo album, "Luiza - Live In Rio" was recorded in 1993, followed by "Rio Vermelho" (1995), which features Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa, Marcos Valle, Ron Carter, Sadao Watanabe. Her third album was a collaboration project with Luiz Bonfa, "Almost In Love - Ithamara Koorax Sings The Luiz Bonfá Songbook" (1996), featuring Bonfa himself on guitar plus special guests Eumir Deodato, Ron Carter, Larry Coryell, and Sadao Watanabe.

"Wave 2001" (1997) was recorded in Tokyo, with Japanese musicians such as Tomonao Hara and Eijiro Nakagawa, during an Asian tour the previous year. It was followed by "Bossa Nova Meets Drum 'N' Bass" (1998), recorded in New York and London.

Koorax signed a deal with Milestone Records in 2000 and released two albums produced by Arnaldo DeSouteiro for the San Francisco-based label: "Serenade In Blue" (2001, featuring Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Azymuth, Eumir Deodato, Jay Berliner, Marcos Valle) and "Love Dance" (2003, with John McLaughlin, Dom Um Romão, João Palma, Marcos Valle, Jurgen Friedrich, Azymuth).

In 2009, "Bim Bom - The Complete Joao Gilberto Songbook," a duo session with guitarist Juarez Moreira, received rave reviews in the New York Times, Cashbox, Billboard, Jazz Hot, Jazz 'n' More, All Music Guide, and many other magazines, websites and newspapers.

Another CD, "O Grande Amor," recorded during a European tour with the Peter Schärli Trio in 2010, was also released with critical acclaim, receiving a 4 and 1/2 star review in the May 2011 issue of DownBeat magazine and 5-star ratings in several other magazines like Jazz 'n' More. Later on, O Grande Amor was elected one of the "Best CDs of 2011" in the January 2012 issue of DownBeat.

Her recordings have been remixed by DJs from all over the world. Among them: Tom Novy, Parov Stelar, Cargo, Tetsu Shibuya/Brisa. During 2010, Ithamara performed 47 concerts in Brazil and 51 abroad, having toured Europe and Asia.

Koorax's jazz-pop album "Got to Be Real," produced and arranged by Arnaldo DeSouteiro, was released worldwide in March 2012 by IRMA Records, with critical acclaim (including a story in DownBeat) and immediate sales.

A bossa nova album, "The Girl from Ipanema - Ithamara Koorax Sings Getz/Gilberto," on which she revisited the material from the legendary album "Getz/Gilberto" (1964) recorded by Stan Getz and João Gilberto, and the dance-oriented electronic project "Ecstasy," were also released in 2013.

Koorax has performed in the U.S., Japan, Korea and many European countries (England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Finland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Portugal), appearing at jazz festivals in London, Seoul, Belgrade, Funchal, Helsinki, and Indijja. She has performed classical and fusion concerts with symphony orchestras, appearing at the Theatro Minicipal do Rio de Janeiro (RJ) with the Petrobras Symphony and at the Ibirapuera Auditorium (São Paulo) with the Orquestra Jazz Sinfônica.

In 2010, she performed 47 concerts in Brazil and 51 abroad, having toured Europe and Asia. On tour in August 2010, she recorded Arirang with Korean pop stars, Brazilian musicians Rodrigo Lima, Arnaldo DeSouteiro and Wilson Chaplin, and American jazzmen Lee Ritenour and Alan Broadbent.

Koorax's crossover classics project Opus Classico (2013) includes works by Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Wagner, Debussy, Fauré, Ravel and Brazilian composers Heitor Villa-Lobos, Delza Agricola, Chiquinha Gonzaga and Machado de Assis. Her album All Around the World (2014) was recorded live in Rio, London, Paris, Sofia, Munich, Tokyo, and Seoul, with songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Jorge Ben, Marvin Gaye, Herbie Hancock, and Jimi Hendrix.

Ithamara Koorax Sings The Jazz Masters, recorded by Rudy Van Gelder and dedicated to the audio engineer was released in 2017, featuring pianists Rodgers Grant and Norman Simmons, followed by 60 Years of Bossa Nova in 2018.

Several singles have been released in 2023 and 2004, such as Feel Like Making Love (a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Roberta Flack's number 1 pop hit) and Samba do Dom Natural on which Koorax sings in duet with the song composer, Carlos Pingarilho, a Bossa Nova living legend who is celebrating his 85th birthday. Koorax also appears as special guest on Gustavo Cysne's Dive Into The Deep Blue, released in July 2024, with the song Dive Into The Deep Blue reaching the top of the All About Jazz charts.

A new single was recorded in March 2025, Spirit of Summer, produced by Arnaldo DeSouteiro in collaboration with arranger, producer and keyboardist Eumir Deodato as part of an upcoming album project. For the first time, "Spirit of Summer" was recorded and released in the U.S. with lyrics written by Deodato himself.

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Original press-release by Milestone Records for the Love Dance album: 

Although Rio de Janeiro-based vocalist Ithamara Koorax has long been established as a recording artist in her native Brazil as well as in Europe and Japan, it wasn't until 2000 that American listeners were introduced to her unique vocal stylings on Milestone's Serenade in Blue. That release helped position her for a 4th-place finish in the Female Singer category--behind Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall, and Dianne Reeves--in the 2002 Down Beat Readers Poll.

Back in 2000, Ithamara was voted for the first time one of the world's best jazz singers by Down Beat, also appearing as #3 Best Beyond Artist, behind only Sting and Carlos Santana, and ahead of such heavyweights as Tom Waits, Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell. Serenade In Blue (featuring Deodato, Jay Berliner, Azymuth, Dom Um Romao, Kevin Jasper, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Nelson Angelo) was voted #7 Best Beyond Album in that same 2000 Down Beat Readers Poll.

Ithamara's extraordinary follow-up CD, Love Dance: The Ballad Album, will certainly establish her artistry in the most convincing possible terms. It was just voted #5 Best Beyond Album in the 2003 Down Beat Readers Poll, behind only the latest discs by Norah Jones, Steely Dan, Radiohead and The Roots. Love Dance was also acclaimed as one of the Top 10 Vocal Albums for 2003, by the critics of the prestigious The Independent Weekly.

For this new album--inspired by Mark Murphy's 1988 Milestone session September Ballads--Koorax and her producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro assembled a phenomenal international cast as well as a challenging, inspiring repertoire. Singing in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Koorax has chosen unexpected beauties from Brazilian masters including Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa, Marcos Valle, and Ivan Lins; from Claus Ogerman and pianist Jurgen Friedrich; and even Vernon Duke (a tender reading of "April in Paris," recorded as a duet with Bonfa just a few months before his death).

Among Ithamara's accompanists are guitarist John McLaughlin (on "Man Alone," his first recording backing a vocalist), Azymuth ("Love Dance"), Marcos Valle (a duet performance of his composition "Flame"), and Gonzalo Rubalcaba (offering piano backing on "La Puerta" and Jobim's "Amparo"). Other tunes are Jobim's "Ligia," "Someday," "Blauauge," and "I Loved You" (composed by the brilliant arranger Claus Ogerman).

Ithamara Koorax (pronounced ee-tah-MAH-rah KOH-rax) is a native of Rio de Janeiro, where she still resides. "My family, Polish Jews, fled Europe during the second World War," the 37-year-old vocalist explains. "I started to study singing and classical piano when I was very young, just five years old. My concentration, of course, was on lyric singing, classical music, mostly European music.

"But when I was around 18 or 19, I started earning money by singing ad jingles and doing backup vocals for many Brazilian pop stars. I realized then I wanted to do something else. I had become familiar with singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Elis Regina. But the most important influences on my singing were Elizeth Cardoso [the uncredited singer in the original Black Orpheus soundtrack], Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, and Flora Purim."

Koorax's reputation as a controlled and expressive vocalist spread quickly and her voice became a very hot commodity in studios all over Rio. Her first solo recording "Iluminada" launched her into the limelight when the song was included as the theme for one of Brazil's popular novelas (soap operas). The soundtrack went platinum and her career never looked back.

Ithamara soon began performing with the likes of Hermeto Pascoal, Edu Lobo, Azymuth, and Martinho da Vila, and returned several times to the hit parades with more novela theme songs. (In Brazil, everything stops for the evening soaps whose soundtracks become instant hits because of the hammering TV exposure. Inclusion in a novela is a very prestigious gig.)

Describing this emerging new voice, one of Brazil's top popular music critics, Tarik de Souza, wrote: "Possessing a rare vocal range, Ithamara... exercises her well-crafted instrument in stylistic schools that run from Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis to Elis Regina, Yma Sumac, and Elizeth Cardoso. But she does so in her own way, alternating delicate intimacy with heated passion... a dazzling, heady lesson in vocal techniques."

Then her fame spread halfway around the world. "In 1991 the novelas had given me so much exposure," Itha recalls, "even tourists were crowding my gigs. A Japanese impresario heard me one night and invited me to do a tour of Japan. I didn't even have a record there yet. Later I did three more tours and now I am considered one of the four top jazz singers by Japanese critics!" That same year, in May 1991, she took part in an all-star session alongside Art Farmer, Eddie Gomez, Jack DeJohnette, and Gil Goldstein, produced in New York by Creed Taylor (CTI) but never released in this country.

Her debut solo album, Luiza (Live in Rio), won the Brazilian version of the Grammy: the 1994 Sharp Award for Best New Artist. The CDs she eventually released in Japan, including Luiza (1994), Rio Vermelho (1995, which, by the way, included Jobim's last recorded performance), and Almost in Love/Ithamara Koorax Sings the Luiz Bonfa Songbook (1996, featuring Bonfa, Ron Carter, Larry Coryell, Sadao Watanabe, and Eumir Deodato), have all been prominently recognized on Japanese best-seller and best-of lists.

In testimony to Ithamara's talent, composer and guitar legend Bonf remarked, "It's an honor and a privilege to work with such a great artist as Ithamara, one of the best singers in the world." Jobim himself referred to her as "simply one of the best singers on the scene."

On another front, her acid-jazz version of the Joao Donato/Caetano Veloso tune, "The Frog," became a dancefloor hit in Europe in 1994, anticipating later collaborations with Dom Um Romao (formerly with Sergio Mendes, Frank Sinatra, and Weather Report, among others), including an appearance on Romao's much-acclaimed albums Rhythm Traveller (1998), Lake of Perseverance (2000) and Nu Jazz Meets Brasil (2002), as well as on Brazil All-Stars' Rio Strut (2003) for Milestone Records.

Later that same year, in an able display of her versatility, she recorded the first Brazilian album in the drum 'n' bass genre, Bossa Nova Meets Drum 'n' Bass, and participated in a recording of works by Brazilian classical composer Hekel Tavares.

Ithamara's Milestone CDs--both the new Love Dance and its predecessor Serenade in Blue--grew out of her desire to be known, not as a Brazilian singer of Brazilian music, but "as a singer--period."

Love Dance was described by Swing Journal as "a very personal record in which the musicians made deeply personal contributions, as composers and accompanists, to their friend and colleague Ithamara, who turned in some of her most affecting performances to date. It's a stunning effort from a uniquely gifted artist."