Traces (Sunnyside Records)
Camila Meza
Released February 26, 2016
2016 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Best Vocal Album
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lKDfngcxSOf7kPA9MVcErwpIZp_-MHU9c
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/0kWxhEJGTl1ch0FGvBamCa?si=2kWpe66uTPi3ww2jmZFugw
About:
Vocalist/guitarist/composer Camila Meza is a rarity, a glorious triptych of an artist. She possesses a gift for composing brilliant musical landscapes, a captivating, soulfully pure vocal instrument, and a consummate prowess on guitar, ablaze with irresistible melodies and improvisations. Camila Meza, originally from Santiago, Chile, has garnered rapt attention from her colleagues, the press, and audiences in South America, New York City, and internationally, for her distinctive ability in blending jazz with her broad musical world (that includes Latin American, Brazilian, folk and pop), and for the emotional depth of her music. For this show at Natalie’s, she will be accompanied by Michael Orenstein on piano, Kip Reed on bass, and Anthony Taddeo on drums. This rising star on the global jazz scene has been described by The New York Times as, “a bright young singer and guitarist with an ear for music of both folkloric and pop intention,” and called, “a natural multi-talent, an improvising singer-guitarist who is one of the finest in the world in both creative realms,” by pianist Aaron Goldberg. He added that, “she unites North and South America in a multilingual mega-continent, a pangaea of swing and harmony.” Being called to join your peers on stage and in the studio remains one of the true tests that any NYC jazz musician will face, and Camila has passed, summa cum laude, staying very busy as an in-demand side musician, working with the likes of Ryan Keberle, Fabian Almazan, Aaron Goldberg, Sachal Vasandani, and many others.
Track Listing:
1. Para Volar (Camila Meza) 05:11
2. Away (Camila Meza) 04:55
3. Traces (Camila Meza) 05:16
4. Amazon Farewell (DJ Avan / Mark Vieha / Brock Walsh) 06:32
5. Mar Elástico (Camila Meza) 06:13
6. Luchín (Victor Jara) 03:51
7. Greenfinch and Linnet Bird (Stephen Sondheim) 07:05
8. Emerald (06:39)
9. Mangata (Camila Meza) 05:30
10. Little Person (Jon Brion) 04:07
Personnel:
Camila Meza: vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Shai Maestro: piano, Rhodes, wurlitzer; mellotron, pump organ, ampli-celeste
Matt Penman: bass
Kendrick Scott: drums
Bashiri Johnson: percussion
Jody Redhage: cello (2, 4, 8)
Sachal Vasandani: vocals (2)
Produced by Camila Meza & Matt Pierson
Review:
Try to process
and pin down the meaning of Camila Meza’s mien in any number of pictures
included in this package and you may come up empty. But it’s not for lack of
expression there. It’s for the exact opposite reason. Meza projects countless
thoughts and moods—both complementary and contradictory in
nature—within a single image, and it’s the same with her music. She’s extremely
colorful in her methods and means of expression, creating rich and enchanting
concoctions that project longing, hope, beauty, strength, fragility, love, and
any number of other emotions and thoughts. Her talents are many, but her
ability to layer and blend different feelings may be the greatest gift she
gives us.
Traces, by Meza’s own written admission, is something of a reflective work.
But, as hinted at above, this is not music of a purely introverted or
introspective nature. These tales of self-discovery can be powerful, poetic,
and/or peaceable in nature. None of those ideals prove to be mutually exclusive
here. Across ten numbers Meza shows herself to be a singular talent, fashioning
her own sonic universe with her guitar, capturing the imagination with her
arresting vocals, crafting personal songs that still manage to resonate in
universal terms, and investing her own soul within the work of other composers.
And with a band that includes strong and malleable personalities like
pianist Shai Maestro, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Kendrick
Scott, Meza is able to amplify the intent in the music.
This album opens on the windswept wonders of “Para Volar,” but it
doesn’t take long for the mood, sound, and theme to shift. “Away,”
bringing vocalist Sachal Vasandani and cellist Jody
Redhage into the mix, deals with the difference between skin deep
affection and true love. Then there’s the title track, playing like an
exploration of optimism and empowerment; Djavan’s “Amazon Farewell,”
a commentary on the way man deals with and destroys nature; and “Mar
Elastico,” Meza’s reminisces and reflections on the elastic nature of
familial bonds.
Further on, Meza presents more of her own music and deals with the work of composers as different as Chilean Victor Jara, Broadway giant Stephen Sondheim, and indie icon/producer/film composer Jon Brion. Jara’s “Luchin” finds Meza alone with her guitar, bringing voice to the problems and injustices in her native country through the titular character, and Sondheim’s “Greenfinch And Linnet Bird” takes on a sunnier and lighter-than-usual quality. Brion’s “Little Person” comes later, serving as an intimate finale that’s light in texture but weighty in other respects, addressing relationships and the balance between insignificance and importance. It’s the perfect sendoff from an artist who continually and successfully manages to set off such disparate ideas against one another.
Dan Bilawsky (All About Jazz)
