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Luciana Souza
2002 and 2003 Grammy nominee Luciana Souza is one of Brazil's leading singers and interpreters, while at the same time establishing herself as one of the most exciting songwriters of the time. Hailing from Sao Paulo, Brazil, she grew up in a family of Bossa Nova innovators who performed and wrote numerous hit tunes for stars like Joao Gilberto and Elis Regina. Her early childhood was influenced by the frequent jam sessions and weekend visits of stars of the day such as Milton Nascimento and Hermeto Pascoal.
Her work as a performer transcends traditional boundaries around musical styles, offering solid roots in jazz, sophisticated lineage in world music and an enlightened approach to classical repertoire and new music. Ms. Souza has appeared and recorded with renowned jazz musicians including Danilo Perez (on two Grammy nominated albums), John Patitucci, Hermeto Pascoal, Maria Schneider, and Kenny Wheeler among others.
As a leader, Luciana Souza has five acclaimed releases of her own including the 1999 release "An Answer to Your Silence," on NYC Records. Immediately following that release, Souza teamed up with Sunnyside Records to release two more gems. "The Poems of Elizabeth Bishop and Other Songs," was #5 in The New York Times under "The Year in Pop and Jazz: the Critics' Choice" for the year 2000, and similarly her 2002 release, "Brazilian Duos," with guitarists Romero Lubambo, Marco Pereira and Walter Santos, was rated #4 in The New York Times under "The Year in Jazz: the Critics Choice" for 2001 and nominated for a Grammy as "Best Jazz Vocal Album" for 2002.
Her "North and South" recording , also for Sunnyside, featured Ms. Souza with bassist Scott Colley, drummer Clarence Penn and three pianists, Edward Simon, Bruce Barth and Fred Hersch in an eclectic mix of standards from the Brazilian and American repertory and two exciting new originals. This recording was also nominated for a Grammy as "Best Jazz Vocal Album" for 2003.
Luciana Souza’s latest recording, “Neruda” (Sunnyside) is Ms. Souza’s settings of 10 of Pablo Neruda’s poems for voice, piano, and percussion. Received by the press with rave reviews, “Neruda”is a sublime work by what the New York Times calls “a serious composer.”
In addition to her work in Jazz, Ms. Souza has been a prominent soloist in two works by new music composer Osvaldo Golijov. Through these works, Souza has performed with the Bach Akademie Stuttgart, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the LA Symphony, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Other orchestral appearances include Manuel de Falla's "El Amor Brujo" with the Atlanta Symphony under the baton of Robert Spano and, more recently, with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Roberto Minczuk.
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Delia Fischer: Beyond Bossa
by Katchie Cartwright
An intriguingly multi-layered project, Beyond Bossa has unfolded over a number of years. The “beyond" in the title points in a few directions. A pianist, composer-arranger, singer (and dancer), Delia Fischer works across idioms: bossa nova, jazz, música popular brasileira (MPB), various types of Brazilian music, theater. Her recordings have earned her Latin Grammy nominations for Best Brazilian Album (MPB) in 2021 (H.O.J.E., Labidad Produções) and 2019 (Tempo Minimo, Labidad Produções). Further extending the boundaries, she called upon a far-flung ...
Continue ReadingDelia Fischer: Beyond Bossa
by Allen Morrison
In 2019, after I'd been writing for DownBeat Magazine for about a decade, I was asked to review a batch of new albums from Brazil, including one by a Rio de Janeiro-based singer named Delia Fischer who wrote her own songs. I gathered that, in addition, she was a jazz pianist, an arranger, and the musical director for several hit musicals in Rio. She had worked with Brazilian legends like Marcos Valle, Egberto Gismonti, and Milton Nascimento, who recorded one ...
Continue ReadingLuciana Souza: Cometa
by Angelo Leonardi
Luciana Souza è la massima voce della musica brasiliana più legata al jazz, come testimoniano i molti riconoscimenti, le prestigiose collaborazioni (Herbie Hancock, Maria Schneider, Danilo Perez, Guillermo Klein, Vince Mendoza ecc...) e la decina di dischi a suo nome (tra cui l'intima dedica a Chet Baker in The Book Of Chet). Anche se ha vissuto quarant'anni prevalentemente negli Stati Uniti il suo legame con i musicisti brasiliani non s'è mai interrotto ed ora debutta con il Trio Corrente di ...
Continue ReadingLuciana Souza: Cometa
by Katchie Cartwright
Luciana Souza and Trio Corrente inhabit the deep intersections of Brazilian and jazz practices, a realm Souza's double-take Yemanjá-Lady Liberty garb suggests lies somewhere in the Atlantic (see the album cover). They share rarified air as Grammy winners, as composers and as performers. It seems inevitable that they would eventually collaborate. A fan of Trio Corrente since its inception (2001), Souza met drummer Edu Ribeiro on a teaching gig, then reconnected with him and pianist Fabio Torres on a record ...
Continue ReadingEdward Simon: 25 Years
by Angelo Leonardi
Al pubblico del jazz non piacciono molto le compilations ma questa del pianista Edward Simon è speciale. I diciassette brani del doppio CD sono stati scelti da lui--come bilancio e riflessione personale nel 25° anno della sua attività da leader--e forniscono una variopinta retrospettiva delle sue tappe musicali. «L'idea mi è venuta l'anno scorso (2019) quando ho compito 50 anni--ha detto al Columbia Daily Tribune--La raccolta è nata da uno spirito di celebrazione e dalla consapevolezza di quante cose siano ...
Continue ReadingFahir Atakoglu: For Love
by Edward Blanco
Veteran international recording artist Fahir Atakoglu delivers his eighteenth album as leader with the audacious For Love, an album which he proclaims: “ ... Is all about love." And he believes “Everything depends on love." A native of Turkey, this Turkish-American artist is an award-winning composer and pianist whose long and distinguished career has included writing for television, films and documentaries. This exceptional recording was purposely designed with a foreign flavor in mind, revealing a varied repertoire that blends musical ...
Continue ReadingEdward Simon: 25 Years
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Edward Simon immigrated to the United States from his native Venezuela while still in his teens. He stayed, and carved out a successful career in music. His fiftieth birthday rolled around, and the artist decided it was time to take a look and listen back. In a musical journey that spans the titular 25 Years, Simon has crafted a lot of music, employing a Latin/jazz/classical approach with a seemingly effortless refinement, making sounds that are unfailingly engaging and beautiful. ...
Continue ReadingFahir Atakoğlu New Release For Love Featuring Vocalists Buika, Luciana Souza, Letizia Gambi & Aimée Allen!
Source:
Scott Thompson Public Relations
An unrepentant romantic, Turkish-American pianist-composer-arranger Fahir Atakoğlu is all-in For Love (Far & Here, LLC) on his 18th album as a leader. A visionary undertaking that blends musical elements from Turkey, Spain, Italy, the Middle East, Cuba and Brazil while revealing touches of American jazz in the freewheeling improvisations heard throughout, For Love also carries the majestic sweep of symphonic polyphony in Fahir's stirring string orchestrations. With world-class musicians in American saxophonist Bob Franceschini, Canadian bassist Alain Caron, Turkish percussionist ...
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Monday Recommendation: Luciana Souza
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Luciana Souza, The Book Of Longing (Sunnyside) Returning to recording, Luciana Souza is inspired by poetry. The Book Of Longing finds her drawing inspiration from poets of two centuries and singing three new songs of her own. Bassist Scott Colley and Brazilian guitarist Chico Pinheiro accompany her, enhancing the album’s moods, using counterpoint as commentary. Both solo with distinction. Colley is notably effective in Ms. Souza’s “These Things,” which has a nifty reference to Robert Frost. Pinheiro finds a rhythmic ...
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New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department Presents The Music Of Luciana Souza On Wednesday, December 4
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
Grammy Winner Souza Will Perform with Each of Three Student Groups Public Residency Events Include Introduction to Brazilian Music on December 2 and Expanding the Singer's Vocabulary on December 3 “Her music soulfully reflects, wistfully regrets, romantically woos, joyfully celebrates." —Billboard New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department presents The Music of Luciana Souza, a free concert featuring three student ensembles performing Grammy winner Souza’s music. Souza, who earned her Master’s in Music from the department in 1994, will perform with ...
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Latin Jazz icons Michel Camilo and Luciana Souza put new twists on the mellow genre
Source:
Michael Ricci
Camilo's new CD Mano A Mano mixes American jazz with Latin grooves and European classical; Souza does American standards in The Book of Chet Pianist and composer Michel Camilo says we’re in a second golden age in Latin Jazz. The first great era occurred from the 1930s through the 1950s, with “Chano Pozo, Mario Bauza, Juan Tizol with Duke Ellington, Ray Baretto playing with Charlie Parker, Candido, and Dizzy Gillespie, of course,” says Camilo, 53, who lives in Bedford, N.Y. ...
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Luciana Souza To Release Two New CD’s August 28th
Source:
Muse Media
CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED JAZZ SINGER LUCIANA SOUZA TO RELEASE TWO NEW CD’S AUGUST 28TH “Luciana Souza is a jazz singer who doesn't inhabit the normal jazz-singer role. A composer and arranger of considerable gifts, her midrange voice is amazingly controlled. It is alert, directed, with undertones of calm conversation. It's the sound of a well- rested intelligence.” —The New York Times Los Angeles, CA: After a three-year hiatus from recording, consummate artist and Jazz Singer Luciana Souza returns to Sunnyside Records with ...
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Luciana Souza to Release "Tide" May 26
Source:
Muse Media
Luciana Souza will release her new album Tide, May 26th. In describing her choice of material for Tide, Luciana Souza says “geography and language have played a big part in my life. Feeling uprooted and disoriented, but also aspiring to being centered and calm – a real dichotomy of feelings, but somehow thriving in the memories and in the unknown. Poetry and music have carried me around, as has love.” Luciana Souza has moved around. Born and raised in São ...
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Luciana Souza to Perform at Rutgers-Camden Jazz Festival December 8th
Source:
All About Jazz
Brazilian Singer Luciana Souza Will Perform @ Rutgers-Camden Jazz Festival Saturday, December 8, 2007 @ 8 PM
Day begins with FREE afternoon jazz concert and workshop 1 pm to 4 pm in Black Box Studio with MASTER DRUMMER KENYATTA & LA TUMBA GORDON THEATER, 3rd & Pearl Streets, Camden, NJ
November 8, 2007, Camden, New Jersey -- Three-time GRAMMY nominated Brazilian-American singer LUCIANA SOUZA will perform at the Rutgers- Camden Jazz Festival on Saturday, December 8, 2007 at 8 pm ...
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Vocalist Luciana Souza Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
Is Luciana Souza on the verge of reinventing bossa nova? A careful look at The New Bossa Nova (Verve, 2007), may well provide the answer to this question, as the Brazilian-born singer aims to present classic pop tunes with a bossa nova feeling. It's a kind of whispering, Luciana says; a whispering in a loud world.
AAJ Contributor Joao Moreira dos Santos spoke with Souza about The New Bossa Nova, and applying its minimalist aesthetic to a variety of well-known ...
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Luciana Souza: The Voice of the New Bossa Nova
Source:
All About Jazz
"I wanted to make a record that would be accessible yet truthful," Luciana Souza says of The New Bossa Nova, her seventh album and her Verve debut. “The world is so loud and noisy and overwhelming now that it can be a challenge to get people to sit and listen to something that's quiet. But I have faith that they will." The New Bossa Nova marks an exciting new chapter for the Brazilian-born vocalist and three-time Grammy nominee, who's already ...
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Marketplace (feat. Mario Biondi)
From: Beyond BossaBy Luciana Souza
Two Islands III
From: Atwood SuitesBy Luciana Souza
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