Two CD's today: Neruda by the Brazilian vocalist/percussionist Luciana Souza and Last Quarter Moon by the Italian vocalist Chiara Civello. Come to find out, both ladies are alumnus of the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Faithful Readers will recall my enthusiasm upon driving by it on my Fall whirlwind trip. What an odd coincidence.
Anyway, Luciana pulls off the near impossible. She has set Pablo Neruda's poems to music – but just a piano and her own percussion. She has crafted little minimalist treasures. It is clear the woman is a gifted artist and almost every song (poem?) is lovely and certainly an accomplishment, but for me, it is all a bit too languid to take it all in at one sitting. The tracks sound better to me broken up with some tracks that feature a more complex instrumentation. This is a great disc for the shuffle feature on your CD player...It really is a lovely piece of artistry, but best taken in small bites.
I read a lot of hype about the “next great jazz singer”, proported to be Chiara Civello. This disc of hers is very pleasant, with two standout tracks, “Caramel” and “Nature Song”. Her voice is a Rickie Lee Jones/Basia/Sade/Astrud Gilberto melange, and even though she hails from Italy, her sound is much more Brazilian Pop and Samba, with some jazz overtones for good measure.
Much had been made of her association with Burt Bacharach on this CD. After listening to that track, Hal David and Carole Bayer Sager and Dionne Warwick can rest easily. No competition.
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