| The New York Times |
| by Nate Chinen. December 2009 “Praia” (Inner Circle) is the appealingly self-assured debut by Sara Serpa, a young Portuguese singer now serving a productive apprenticeship with the alto saxophonist Greg Osby. |
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| National Public Radio- NPR |
| Listen to Serpa on her own "Dez Longas Dias De Chuva," and it's abundantly clear that she has always had her ear to jazz. |
| Sara Serpa: Wordless Jazz Improvisation |
| Time Out New York |
| Sara Serpa got a career boost recently when saxist Greg Osby produced her debut, Praia. The Portuguese singer-composer puts forth a compelling vision on the disc: Alternately tight and abstract, her bold writing highlights her airily precise voice. |
| Sara Serpa in Time Out NY |
| The New York Times |
| by Nate Chinen, August 2008 Mr. Osby has a strong new album, “9 Levels,” on his own new label, Inner Circle. (Now available as a download at innercirclemusic.net, it will soon be issued on CD.) The album features a close facsimile of the current band, with piano standing in for vibraphone; among its more distinctive sonic elements is Ms. Serpa, a bright young Portuguese singer.Through most of the set Ms. Serpa, who has her own Inner Circle release due out in the fall, sang in airtight unison with Mr. Osby: an impressive feat, given the leaps and syncopations of a tune like “Vertical Hold.” She showed even more composure on her own piece, “Praia,” which overlays a poplike structure with a slaloming melodic line. |
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| The Boston Globe |
| by Siddhartha Mitter, March 2007 She´s unique beyond words. When fully expressed, the human voice has such potential that instruments are crafted to imitate it, not the other way round. In fact, whole traditions of music honor the voice above all other instruments. Seen this way, a song can be a terribly limiting thing. Verses and refrains shackle inventiveness. Lyrics force subtle shadings of tone into foregone conclusions, constrained by language and vocabulary. That’s just one way of looking at things, of course, but it's enough to have bred a stream of jazz musicians who use their voice to interpret mainly wordless compositions. It's a different technique than scatting: In wordless singing the voice harmonizes with the other instruments, improvises, maybe takes a solo. It's hard to do, and when done poorly, can be quite a drag. Now a young singer and composer who has embraced the technique to great effect is emerging on the Boston scene. Sara Serpa was the featured guest of saxophone great Greg Osby during a recent Berklee residency. Wednesday, she takes the stage at Ryles as the leader of her quintet |
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| All About Jazz. |
| by Phil DiPietro. November 2008. She's the freshest vocalist on the scene at the moment, not just because she's new to it at age 28. (...)A main reason is that with one recording in, she raises profound questions regarding the previous role of the vocalist in jazz. |
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| Downbeat |
| by Dan Oulette, December 2008 Article about the label Inner Circle Music "(...) I had been looking for a new foil to bring a different color to my music,"said Osby, who discovered the Portugal-born vocalist through MySpace." I was fishing around and checking out a page of a friend who worked with Sara. I went to her page and her singing was so melodic, so perfect. Her music sounded like it should have sounded-not manufactured, not overproduced.(...)" "Singing in his band is a work in progress, Greg is a musician with a long career who has experienced many different things in music," Serpa said, "My aspiration is to absorb all I can while I share the stage with him as a singer, composer and improviser. He's giving me the opportunity to be exposed to challenging musical environments (...)" |
| All About Jazz |
| by Frank A. Matzner, October 2008 Interview with Greg Osby about new record and new label "AAJ: Let's take a look at the first release for the label, 9 Levels. A tremendous work, owing its success in no small part to the new slate of band members,including vocalist Sara Serpa who is heavily featured. You discovered Sara on the Internet, correct? GO: Right, right. I was surfing. I was on a friend's page and she happened to be [pictured] there and I said, what a charming looking young lady. Which isn't really what I said, you understand. Wow. She's fine! [Laughs] Then, I was listening and on the first tune she was singing this tricky rhyme and she was perfectly in tune. And her delivery had this really nice lilt to it, a nice bounce. Man, she sounded like a flute at times then she sounded like a trumpet, then at times violin tendencies and guitarist, percussion things. It wasn't necessarily a scat thing—more like a horn. And I had been thinking for years, who am I going to employ to be my trusted second? I'd had guitarists, other horn players, tenors, trumpets, trombones. For a long time I'd be like: If I could get a singer that could sing my melodies in tandem with me and ghost my melodicism, I'd be there. Now there are a couple of other people that I've considered, but they don't have the improvisational prowess that Sara has. She can look at chord changes and negotiate them like a horn player. She has perfect pitch. Great range, incredible stamina, and just a fearlessness that is necessary to get on stage with a group like us. AAJ: It also sounds like this band has pushed your own playing to new places. GO: Well, I had to create custom material for the individuals' personalities. Which was challenging because I didn't really know them that well. I knew them enough to know that I would have to step up my game. So given that, the music I wrote was the most difficult music I've ever written in my life, technically. I had to actually practice it for a really long time to execute it. Then I heard Sara singing it and she was nailing it a lot more accurately than I was! That was impressive." |
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| All About Jazz. |
| by Mark F. Turner, August 2008 The sextet's sixth element is found in the unique vocals of singer Sara Serpa from Lisboa, Portugal. Her voice a finely tuned instrument, serious scattin' on "Truth," choral phrases on "Humility" or wordless touches like a painter's brushstrokes on canvass on the lovely abstract piece "Tolerance.” |
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| All About Jazz. |
| by Phil DiPietro. November 2008. (about collaboration in ROSA-SHOCK by André Matos) The most obvious difference between this and some of the other stellar TOAP dates, is the presence of a vocalist, the remarkable Sara Serpa. With four new releases hitting almost simultaneously—including a brilliant debut recording, she makes an unexpected and deceptively simple bid to challenge nothing less than the very concept of the role of a jazz vocalist in a small ensemble. Serpa doesn't sing songs as much as she becomes part of them, using no lyrics, with a natural vocalese that cannot be called scatting. Singing as any front-line member of the ensemble would play, she moves effortlessly from melodist to soloist to ensemble voice.(…) Because if Serpa's Praia and this recording by Matos are any indication, their dance should continue to be fruitful, surprising and enticing for years to come. |
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| All About Jazz. |
| by Franz A. Matzner While each player possesses enormous ability in his or her own right, it is Serpa’s astonishing vocal ability that clearly forms the heart of Osby’s latest endeavor, and it was her stunningly unique approach that left the Kennedy Center’s audience breathless. (…)Blending her voice with Osby’s alto in a wordless improvisation, Serpa seamlessly integrated her lines and solos together with Osby’s. Acting more as an additional frontline horn than a traditional vocalist, Serpa’s vocal style resists description and defies the task of identifying precursors or analogs. More than a modernized scatť, Serpa has abandoned the syllabic conventions codified in earlier decades for a thoroughly contemporary form based on flowing lines, color, and texture, owing its closest relation perhaps to opera, with a bit of Luciana Souza, Bjork, and the only briefly recorded Devorah Day mixed.(…)As a first outing, the Osby Five’s performance can only be summarized as heraldic, and Serpa a phenomena |
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| The DCist |
| by Sriram Gopal. May 2009 Vocalist Sara Serpa's career track is a road less traveled in today's jazz world. Many singers are beholden to the past, choosing to express themselves through the standards of yesteryear, while trying to recreate the sound of the great crooners, whether it be Sinatra, Holiday, or Fitzgerald. Serpa, originally from Lisbon, Portugal, not only does not limit herself to old material, but has an approach closer to that of an instrumentalist instead of a chanteuse |
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| About.com |
| by Jacob Teichroew, December 2008 There is underlying joy on 9 Levels, due mostly to three things: Greg Osby’s laughing improvisation style, Sara Serpa’s smooth-as-glass voice, and the conversational nature of the solos. |
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| The Chicago Reader |
| by Peter Margasak, August 2008 He hasn't released much since parting ways with Blue Note a couple years ago, but for the fine new 9 Levels (…) he's assembled an unusual group with guitarist Nir Felder, drummer Hamir Atwal, bassist Joseph Lepore, pianist Adam Birnbaum, and a Portuguese singer, Sara Serpa, whom he discovered on MySpace. They handle his twisty postbop compositions with impressive fluidity and clarity, darting through precise arrangements marked by running contrapuntal commentary and taut unison figures--Serpa is especially impressive, her wordless vocals locked to Osby's sax lines in perfect tune. |
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| Jazz.pt |
| by António Branco. January 2009. Even before her debut cd had been released, Sara Serpa was already making history on the national jazz archives, as the first Portuguese musician performing at the legendary New York venue, The Village Vanguard, as a sideman in Greg Osby’s band. (...)With a very personal approach to music, Sara Serpa presents herself as a composer and improviser, singing wordless, through a crystal clear voice, on the same level as her fellow instrumentalists. (...) To summarize, this is an interesting debut by a vocalist that will clearly change the vocal scene in and outside of Portugal in the years to come." |
| Jazz no País do Improviso |
| by Joăo Moreira dos Santos, January 2009 Praia is a challenging and original work that it is worth listening to. It reveals the beginning of Sara Serpa’s exploration of her great creative potential- Serpa is a singer that can go further and what we listen to now is just the tip of a big iceberg of talent. Two things we know for sure: Serpa has all it needs to bring this talent to the surface and is very well accompanied by guitarist Andre Matos. Matos, once again proved to be one of the greatest Portuguese guitarist of the moment, with his unique sound and phrasing. |
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| O Sítio do Jazz |
| by Manuel Jorge Veloso, January 2009 Going straight to the point, Praia is an album that I have enjoyed listening to with great pleasure. Sara Serpa’s choice of expressing herself, technically and aesthetically, through wordless vocals, without vibrato, is specially demanding and brave, going beyond the traditional scat. Not only Serpa exposes keen flexibility, perfect intonation, harmonic ear, amazing range and use of extended techniques but also she proves to be a composer of great quality, being all the pieces recorded in this album of her own. (…). |
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| O Expresso |
| by Raul Vaz Bernardo. January 2009. (about collaboration in ROSA-SHOCK by André Matos) What brings even more value to this recording is the presence of the vocalist Sara Serpa. Recently, Serpa has collaborated with Greg Osby, with whom she recorded his first record for his new label, Inner Circle Music. Sara Serpa is a phenomenon of musicality. Her limpid, wordless and non-exhibitionist way of singing is natural and spontaneous, becoming part of the whole orchestral ensemble, without restraint. Listen to “Rare Birds” and you will find the reason why Mr. Osby must have been surprised when he first heard her |
| Bodyspace.net |
| by Nuno Catarino, December 2008 Serpa owns an amazing vocal quality and with this album "Praia", she demonstrates a rare audacity, taking risks fearlessly, without worrying about commercial factors. |
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| Jazz.pt |
| by Paulo Barbosa , July 2007 (...) Sara Serpa was a good surprise, presenting one of the best concerts at Festa do Jazz. Her compositions are very strong and the trio featuring Albert Sanz, Masa Kamaguchi and R.J. Miller played with an exciting sense of communion. Guitarist André Matos, always getting better on his improvisation skills, brought to the music an interesting color. Serpa took high risks and proved to have an amazing control of her instrument, making a successful use of few "out of tune" pitches as one more vocal effect. Kamaguchi demonstrated that he's one of the most virtuoso and musical double bass players of the moment |
| O Sol |
| by Dora Guennes, September 2007 "She's one of new talents of jazz in Portugal. Vocalist and composer, owner of a sweet and ethereal voice, Sara Serpa leads her own quintet and dreams about an international career. " |
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