LUCIANA SOUZA:
BRINGING BACK THE BOSSA NOVA
by Marshall Bowden
Listening
to Luciana Souza on The New Bossa Nova reminds
one of the best elements of bossa, the music that American
jazz musicians and listeners fell in love with some fifty
years ago. Souza’s voice is so tightly focused, free
of distracting embellishments or unnecessary ornamentation,
that one can listen to it quite apart from the words, as
one would the melodic line of a great instrumentalist. Of
course, the voice is truly the most intimate of all instruments,
because it is created by the singer’s own body and
because it is capable of transmitting meaning not only in
melodic or harmonic terms, but also in words.
Souza is a singer who takes more than a passing
interest in the words that she is singing. Previous projects
have revolved around poetry and literature: The Poems of
Elizabeth Bishop and Other Songs (2000) and Neruda (2004)
were both based on the work of Elizabeth Bishop, an American
poet who lived in Brazil for nearly two decades and Chilean
poet Pablo Neruda. “Literature has been present in
my life through everything I do,” she said in a recent
interview. “ My mother was a poet and so many lessons
she taught me were imparted through lines of poetry. My
life is marked by poetry. The Bishop album began mostly
as an exercise at home, and it grew from there. Words and
language are a way for me to get to other things.”
For The New Bossa Nova she selected songs by a variety of
modern popular songwriters, many known for their way with
words.
Souza’s wish in putting together The
New Bossa Nova project was twofold. First, she wanted to
explore bossa nova music in a way that was both accessible
to all listeners, yet which would also explore the style
in a deep way, paying homage to its Brazilian roots and
creators. Second, she wanted to create an album which would
weave together thematic strands that centered around the
emotion of love and the complexities of that emotion. The
record is very personal for Souza, who is the daughter of
influential Brazilian musicians Walter Santos and Tereza
Souza. The two were influential bossa composers in the original
bossa nova movement, and they later went on to runn both
a recording studio, Nossoestudio, and a record label, Som
de Gente. “We really wanted to explore the aesthetic
of bossa nova,” Souza states. “Because it’s
a style that’s 50 years old, we felt it would be nice
to re-introduce it to people, but in a different way. “
The
New Bossa Nova includes performances of songs by Joni Mitchell
(“Down to You”), James Taylor (“Never
Die Young”), Leonard Cohen (“Here It Is”),
Sting (“When We Dance”), Elliott Smith (“Satellite”),
Steely Dan (“Were You Blind That Day”), and
Randy Newman (“Living Without You”). There is
also a version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s classic “Waters
of March” and two new songs written for the project:
“You and the Girl” by Souza and Larry Klein,
and “Love Is For Strangers,” penned by Klein
and Steely Dan’s Walter Becker.
The list of musicians accompaying Souza is
impressive, and definitely helps her to both pay homage
to and put a new spin on the traditional bossa nova. Tenor
saxophonist Chris Potter, guitarist Romero Lubambo, pianist
Edward Simon, bassist Scott Colley, vibraphonist Matt Moran,
and drummer Antonio Sanchez have just the right touch for
this project.
At age 41, Souza is, in many respects, a
known entity whose work has always followed its own path.
Besides the Bishop and Neruda recordings her discography
includes two albums of Brazilian music done in intimate
duo settings with different guitarists, an album that pondered
her Brazilian roots in comparison with her adopted home
of New York City, and work with Osvaldo Golijaz and the
Maria Schneider Orchestra. In many respects, The New Bossa
Nova is likely to be the album with the most commercial
potential she’s made thus far, one that could break
her out of the jazz/world music world into a more mainstream
environment. Certainly the involvement of Souza’s
husband, producer Larry Klein, brings a very accesible element
to the ears of most modern adult listeners. Klein was behind
a series of four Joni Mitchell albums cut for Geffen Records
that helped move her from pop music to adult crooner as
well as Madeleine Peyroux’s two albums Careless Love
and Half the Perfect World.
Nonetheless, the album is like most Souza
projects in that it is well thought-out, lovingly put together,
and perfectly executed. “One of the things I loved
about this project is that it’s not a record that
I could have made on my own,” says Souza.. “I
think it’s a natural evolution from what I’ve
been doing all along, but it was also very different and
a new challenge. In the past, I’d always produced
my own records and been very controlling of my own music.
On this one, it was amazing and inspiring to have a collaborator
who has so much musical knowledge and music empathy, and
who I also love. Larry is remarkable at capturing sounds
and capturing the air and space between each instrument.
“
“All of the records I’ve done,”
Souza concludes, “have been explorations. Bossa nova
is definitely an area that I would love to pursue more,
but I look at it as opening another door, as opposed to
closing the door on the other things I’ve done before.
My next record could be something completely different,
but I think that I’d like to live with this music
for a while longer.” Regardless of what Luciana Souza
decides to do next, it will no doubt be a well-crafted,
beautiful performance from a singer whose ability to assimilate
the music and attitudes of her adopted U.S. culture into
her native Brazilian heritage is both exhilarating and reassuring.
>>Read
the Jazzitude review of The New Bossa Nova
