Storytellers (Sunnyside Records)
Luciana Souza and the WDR Big Band Cologne
Released March 27, 2020
Jazziz Best Albums of 2020
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nfKMSl4ciLfVZ9xib0hUZdtQjQb0u7KUw
Spotify:
About:
Grammy award winning artists Luciana Souza and Vince Mendoza have joined forces with the WDR Big Band Köln on this most extraordinary collaboration – Storytellers – Luciana’s tenth recording for Sunnyside Records.
Considered one of the most important singers of her generation, Brazilian-born Luciana Souza brings her deeply personal and illuminated singing to songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Pinheiro, Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque, Guinga, Djavan, Ivan Lins, and Gilberto Gil.
Renowned arranger Vince Mendoza presents each song in this collection with an enlightened score that springs from his profound understanding of orchestration, coloring, and his exceptional ability as a composer.
Here, the listener is rewarded with a recording that is essential and truthful, where joy and sorrow, loss and love, come from stories articulated in ways that reach incomparable beauty.
In her short essay that accompanies Storytellers, Luciana Souza says:
“Songs have always been a mysterious gateway into the human experience and into the cultures from which they spring. They articulate the feelings of being a distinct part of a culture, and they grow out of stories and mythologies that the culture is built upon.
For Vince and me, Matita Perê is at the center of this recording. It is Jobim’s tribute to the vast and relentless presence of nature in Brazil. It is also the composer’s homage to João, the common man, and his internal conflicts as he travels through life’s triumphs and tragedies, as the music travels through all tonalities.
Beatriz, also an essential choice in this collection of songs, was written for the ballet O Grande Circo Místico. The story of Beatriz comes from Beatrice, who guides Dante to Hell in The Divine Comedy. Chico Buarque’s poem is presented as a series of questions. Is she young, or old? Is she made of ether? Does she cry alone in her hotel room?
Courtship… The abundance of nature and the human threat to the environment… The experience of solitude and melancholy… An ode to Copacabana… Love and lust… These were the stories we elected to examine in the form of song.
The photograph that graces the cover of this recording is of the Juruá River, in the Brazilian Amazon, by Sebastião Salgado. Sebastião is a giant storyteller. Trained as an economist, he has done more to illuminate issues of social injustice and inequality than anyone I know. He has told stories of workers, of motherless children, of forests razored flat by greedy men, of the endangered native people of Brazil. His work, like Jobim’s, rests as some of the most important and impactful art ever to come out of Brazil.
Vince’s expression as an arranger achieves sublime beauty and refinement with this music, making him a translator of sorts – he reveals and decodes the Portuguese language, the Brazilian harmonies, melodies, and rhythms. Through his unique sonority and his brilliant orchestration we are rewarded with a better understanding of ourselves.
This music was beautifully performed by the exceptional musicians of the WDR Big Band. To me, as an interpreter of songs, it presents the most extraordinary opportunity to tell these remarkable stories, invoking sensations and endeavoring to bring meaning into sound.”
Track Listing:
1. Varanda (Tiago Costa / Chico Pinheiro) 04:18
2. Matita Perê (Paulo Cesar / Antônio Carlos Jobim) 08:34
3. Se Acontecer (Lenine / Ivan Lins) 05:12
4. Beatriz (Chico Buarque / Edú Lobo) 05:42
5. Choro No. 3 (Vince Mendoza) 07:16
6. Meu Pai (Guinga) 04:23
7. Baião a Tempo (Luciana Souza) 06:13
8. Chora Coração (Antônio Carlos Jobim / Vinícius de Moraes) 08:12
9. Mar de Copacabana (Gilberto Gil) 04:55
10. Sim ou Não (Djavan) 04:50
Personnel:
Luciana Souza: vocals
WDR Big Band Köln
Conductor: Vince Mendoza
Saxophone: Johan Hörlen, Karolina Strassmayer, Olivier Peters, Paul Heller, Jens Neufang, Stefan Karl Schmid
Trumpet: Wim Both, Rob Bruynen, Andy Haderer, Ruud Breuls, John Marshall, Bastian Stein
Trombone: Ludwig Nuss, Shannon Barnett, Andy Hunter
Tuba: Mattis Cederberg
Guitar: Paul Shigihara
Bass: John Goldsby
Piano: Rainer Böhm
Drums: Hans Dekker
Percussion: Marcio Doctor
Producer: Vince Mendoza
Engineer: Reinhold Nickel
Mixing: Reinhold Nickel and Christian Schmitt
Mastering: Bernie Grundman
Graphic Design: Cristopher Drukker
Photography: Sabastião Salgado
Executive Producer: François Zalacain, Joachim Becker, Lucas Schmid
Review:
Vocalist Luciana Souza, one of today’s best interpreters of the Brazilian music tradition, collaborates with Vince Mendoza and the WDR Big Band on Storytellers, a celebration of Brazilian music and poetry and some of its greatest interpreters. Mendoza’s arrangements are wonderfully expressive and never overbearing, quite aligned with Souza’s vision and artform and conveying a wide range of styles, atmospheres and emotions.
Matt Micucci (Jazziz)
