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By Phil DiPietro

"She's the freshest vocalist on the scene at the moment,(...).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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http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31190

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBGocP56lPM

by Nate Chinen

"On Tuesday, in the first set of what Mr. Osby described as a debut performance, the ensemble — with Sara Serpa on vocals, Mike Pinto on vibraphone, Nir Felder on guitar, Joseph Lepore on bass and Hamir Atwal on drums — created an hourlong suite of dark-hued, drifting, luminous music, with rounded edges offsetting some spidery intervals. The sound of the group reflected not only Mr. Osby's fully formed aesthetic but also the values of a postmillennial jazz scene, the hybrid-crazy realm in which his younger sidemen operate.

So there was an abundance of flowing eighth-note phrases and some dramatic open harmonies. "Tranya," a ballad by Mr. Pinto, flirted intriguingly with whole-tone scales but preserved the steady undercurrent of a rock tune. "Please Stand By," which appeared on Mr. Osby's last Blue Note release, in 2005, featured an Eastern-tinged chant over a one-chord vamp, evoking the frontier era of fusion. And "Truth," another Osby original, involved a sharp, skipping melody shot through with abstracted funk rhythm.

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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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/arts/music/07osby.html?ex=1218772800&en=6d9cef4d05bffe38&ei=5070

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come to the Village Vanguard! We will be playing there until Sunday!

Check out this great review that just came out in Allaboutjazz. I'm really happy about it!


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 "scat", 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 in.(...)

(...)As a first outing, the Osby Five's performance can only be summarized as heraldic, and Serpa a phenomena.(...)"


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http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=27496