Search - Luciana Souza :: Brazilian Duos

Her Voice is Sheer Aural Cognac

Stephanie DePue | Carolina Beach, NC USA | 11/04/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Luciana Souza's "Brazilian Duos," would have to be considered Latin jazz at its silkiest and most beautiful. Souza, from Sao Paolo, Brazil, is descended from a musical family known as bossa nova innovators. She has a beautifully pliable voice, sheer aural cognac, that you might think wasn't meant for jazz, but you would be wrong. It is ideal for jazz, at least Latin variety, Brazilian genre. The artist has also been getting increasingly better known recently: her work on Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters, won her a 2008 Grammy, and she wowed audiences in an engagement at Brooklyn's BAM (the Brooklyn Academy of Music), with Paul Simon. Three of her records, including the one at hand, have been nominated for Grammies.



As has been the diva's habit, on this vividly colored record, she is backed by two outstanding Brazilian jazz practitioners, Romero Lubambo and Marco Pereira. She also explores widely the music of her homeland, from the very well-known, at least to American ears, Antonio Carlos Jobim: doing his "Eu Nao Existo Sem Voce," and "As Prias Desertas,"to composers and lyricists lesser-known here. In addition, she's backed on several tracks by Walter Santos, her father, less-known here, and gives us several songs he co-wrote with her mother, Tereza Souza.



I was lucky enough to recently catch her performance here, in Wilmington. She was backed by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and I have rarely been in the presence of such beautiful, moving - in more ways than one -- music. You really want to get to know this young woman's work.

"