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Sara Serpa
As a native of Lisbon, Portugal, and currently living in New York, vocalist and composer Sara Serpa has lived around music all her life. While in her teens she attended the Conservatory of Music in Lisbon, studying piano and singing, setting the basis of her musical vocabulary. When facing the challenge of choosing a career, Serpa entered a Psychology College, graduating in Social Work. Her musical desires remained alive during this period and soon she encountered jazz at Hot Clube Jazz School in Lisbon. Serpa’s aspirations of seeking more knowledge and challenges eventually brought her to Boston where she attended Berklee College of Music and later the New England Conservatory, where she received her Masters in Jazz Performance in 2008. Among her teachers were a very celebrated cast of luminaries such as Danilo Perez, Ran Blake, Dominique Eade, Theo Bleckmann, Hal Crook and Jerry Bergonzi.
From the time Serpa arrived to Boston, she has kept her yearning to learn and for developing her own voice as a composer and improviser. Serpa is a singer of a new generation who seeks out challenges in order to grow. Her ability to navigate through demanding, instrumental music and improvise over complex chord progressions is amazingly natural. As a composer Serpa has a unique approach to sound and emotional depth: she creates melodies that seem to tell everyone a different story and at the same time leave her own signature. The fact that she sings mostly wordless music, going beyond the traditional scat technique, is also part of her creative style. It is no mystery that her compositions and singing have established her prematurely as a pillar among many young jazz musicians.
Very recently Ms. Serpa became a new member of Greg Osby’s band, being the first native Portuguese musician to perform at the famous Village Vanguard in New York. Her recording participations include the latest Greg Osby’s album, “9 Levels”, released by Inner Circle Music, and also the guitarist André Matos “Rosa Shock” to be released by Tone of a Pitch. Serpa’s first album “Praia” has been released by Inner Circle Music as well.
For the past years, Sara Serpa has shared stages with an expanding circle of musicians including Greg Osby, John Lockwood, André Matos, Demian Cabaud, Jesse Chandler, Ferenc Nemeth, Matt Pavolka, Pete Rende, Esperanza Spalding, Nick Falk, Peter Slavov, Aruan Ortiz, Leo Genovese, Albert Sanz, Masa Kamaguchi, RJ Miller, Vardan Ovsepian, Nelson Cascais, Bruno Pedroso, Andre Sousa Machado, and Andreia Pinto Correia.
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Sara Serpa & André Matos: Night Birds
by Katchie Cartwright
Night Birds, singer Sara Serpa and guitarist André Matos' third album together, offers an ethereal program of compositions written by the duo, separately and together. They are joined on various tracks by Brooklyn-based pianist-composer Dov Manski, South Korean avant-garde cellist Okkyung Lee, Swedish experimental singer Sofia Jernberg, Portuguese drummer João Pereira, and their young son Lourenço. The album concludes with a Béla Bartók bagatelle. To begin with the intriguing closer, the Bartók is performed quite simply, twice, with ...
read moreJazz Meets Folk, Folk Meets Jazz
by Jerome Wilson
This show looks at some of the many cross-pollinations between jazz and folk music. There are jazz musicians like Dave Brubeck and Dave Douglas dabbling in folk forms and folk musicians like Pentangle and Dave Van Ronk exercising their jazz chops. There are also pieces based on folk musics outside of the usual Anglo-American axis. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air ...
read moreJazz And Poetry Plus Notable 2021 Releases, Part 2
by Mary Foster Conklin
This broadcast presents new releases from Dee Bell and The Greenaway Group featuring vocalist Carla Cook, with a focus in the second hour on the heady combination of Jazz with spoken word featuring recent recordings by Sara Serpa, Jazzmeia Horn, a preview single from Javon Jackson's latest album plus part 2 of a look back to notable albums made in 2021 despite the disruption of the pandemic. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their ...
read moreSara Serpa: Recognition
by Jerome Wilson
A lot of people have started to come to grips with shameful parts of their national heritage in recent times. In America, that has meant protests against displays of the Confederate flag and monuments to Confederate Civil War generals. For Portuguese-born vocalist and composer Sara Serpa, dealing with her heritage has taken a more personal form with Recognition, a multi-media work dealing with Portugal's history of colonial oppression and subjugation of native peoples in Angola. The piece has ...
read moreSara Serpa: Close Up
by Alberto Bazzurro
Finalmente un album pienamente convincente della cantante portoghese (qui anche autrice di tutto il materiale tematico), spesso preziosa, nella sua produzione, ma altrove (anche all'interno di uno stesso lavoro, suo o altrui) un po' disarticolata, quasi schizoide, magari solo curiosa, e comunque alterna nella resa in concreto. Sarà senz'altro anche merito dei due musicisti che l'affiancano, fatto sta che questo suo ultimo album, live alla Pete's House di Brooklyn nel giugno 2017, convince senza arzigogoli o avvitamenti (critici, estetici) di ...
read moreClean Feed 2018
by Mark Corroto
Since it's inception in 2002, Lisbon, Portugal's Clean Feed Records has released nearly 500 recordings. Last year the total was 64. Keeping up with their output might be the best way to follow innovative jazz and improvised music in the 21st century. Besides releasing music by masters such as Peter Brotzmann, Joe McPhee, Ivo Perelman, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Braxton, and Rudresh Mahanthappa, they have introduced world audiences to the talents of Rodrigo Amado, Luís Lopes, Dre Hočevar, Gard Nilssen, and ...
read moreSara Serpa: Close Up
by Jerome Wilson
Portuguese vocalist Sara Serpa has been a significant presence on the New York jazz scene for several years now, creating music with literary and artistic allusions in the company of renowned musicians like Ran Blake, Nicole Mitchell and Tyshawn Sorey. For her latest project she leads a trio that also features saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and cellist Erik Friedlander. The music they make together, with Serpa often singing wordlessly, creates an airy tapestry of sound. On Sol Enganador" Friedlander ...
read moreNew England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies And Contemporary Musical Arts Departments Announce Fall 2023 Concerts Featuring Expansive Programming Across Genres
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
New England Conservatory (NEC) announces an expansive fall season of performances, featuring a diverse roster of ensembles and programming. Ensembles large and small perform in NEC’s world-class venues, including Jordan Hall and the Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre. Jazz Studies welcomes award winning vocalist and alum Sara Serpa for a residency focusing on her acclaimed multi-media work Intimate Strangers. Other fall highlights include a residency with NEA Jazz Master bassist Dave Holland and two concerts by the NEC Jazz Orchestra, ...
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Greg Osby and Sara Serpa Perform at the Village Vanguard
Source:
Michael Ricci
A Progressive Who Knows How to Be Here Now
The alto saxophonist Greg Osby has routinely been assessed over the last 20 years as a jazz progressive, the sort of musician who constantly pushes forward. In postbop terms that's high praise, and a kind of trap. It respects the intent of innovation but places a premium on the results, devaluing any effort that isn't a bridge to new terrain. On Tuesday, in the first set of what Mr. Osby described ...
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"A bright young Portuguese singer" New York Times
"She's the freshest vocalist on the scene at the moment" All About Jazz