LITERATURE INSPIRES VOCALIST SARA SERPA'S STUNNING NEW RELEASE * Second album as a leader showcases her wide range as vocalist and composer with her new quintet * Sara Serpa is the magical voice.-Ran Blake, pianist Serpa's vocal style resists description and defies the task of identifying precursors or analogs. - Franz A. Matzner, All About Jazz - - Sara Serpa is cool all over, from conception to execution. She's got a style just about locked down. - New York Times Mobile (Inner Circle) shows just how far vocalist-composer Sara Serpa has traveled as an artist in the few short years since she arrived in New York. After coming to the world's attention as a member of Greg Osby's group in 2008 and further establishing her credentials in duet with pianist Ran Blake on last year's Camera Obscura, Serpa now sets off firmly on her own journey with a ravishing new release as the leader of a quintet featuring guitarist Andr Matos, keyboardist Kris Davis, bassist Ben Street, and drummer Ted Poor. Inspired by the literature of travel and self-discovery, the far ranging album brilliantly showcases her remarkable abilities as an interpreter of lyrics, an improviser, an ensemble member, and composer. The versatility and originality that led All About Jazz to call her the freshest vocalist on the scene at the moment has never been more in evidence. A native of Lisbon, Portugal, Serpa has been turning heads with her unique and innovative approach to jazz singing. As Alan Young describes in Lucid Culture, In an unadorned, vibratoless, crystalline delivery with a clarity so pure it was scary, Serpa sang mostly carefully chosen and stunningly nuanced vocalese. Mobile showcases some of her best improvising on record so far. Her supple voice, strong with an almost glassy brightness, seems infinitely flexible, equally capable of wild leaps throughout her considerable range or long, flowing lines of graceful contours or short phrases that add a percussion kick to her solos. On Sequoia Gigantis and Pilgrimage to Armanath, she shapes notes carefully, narrowing and expanding them, using dynamics to create pulsing tension and release, while subtle colors and textures brighten and darken her lines. She's just as capable an interpreter of lyrics, as the touchingly vulnerable performances of If and Sem Razao show. My role is the one of a musician, Serpa says, I don't have to be soloing all the time or just interpreting songs. Basically I want to be able to do with my voice what instrumentalists do with their instruments-to use it, to sing, to be part of an ensemble. Every instrument has it's own challenges or limitations, but the main goal is to be a complete musician, with good ears and a sense of rhythm, melody, and harmony. I just want to contribute what feels better for each tune and for the message I want to transmit with it. I am fascinated with the sound of the voice, the resonance it has, it's power as well, she continues. With or without words, I feel like the human sound is very touching and deep. That's why I like so much to just use my voice as a musical instrument. Words are good to transmit a message, to create a state of mind, to tell a story. But I like to think that I am telling stories with my melodies, because that's really what's happening. Her love of storytelling is front and center on Mobile, most of which features compositions inspired by Serpa's reading of fiction and nonfiction travel literature. As she thought about what united the various books she'd been reading, she realized that most of the authors or characters were all solitary travelers, adventurers encouraged by the discovery of the unknown, spirits filled with curiosity. Each song is definitely my vision of certain episode or scene of books I have read. For instance, Sequoia Gigantis is Serpa's impressions of John Steinbeck's visit to the redwoods in Travels with Charley. I imagined a magical and mysterious place, she says. After the recording I had the chance to see redwoods myself. It was even more magical than I expected, but I thi
