Cape Verdean singer Carmen Souza is hoping to bring a refreshing new take on jazz to Ottawa’s Jazz Festival.
Her music has the traditional flavour of Cape Verde—an archipelago country in the Atlantic ocean—brought to a jazz reality, Souza said. As well as mixing Cape Verdean music with jazz, she takes jazz standards and tries them out in a Cape Verde style.
“I believe I am creating a new sound in music in general. It’s not the kind of sound you would hear in Cape Verde or in traditional jazz.”
This is perhaps best seen on her latest album, Kachupada, which features a Cape Verde take on the Miles Davis standard “Donna Lee.” Her cover even features original lyrics in Creole, an ambitious undertaking given the already complex nature of “Donna Lee.”
“I came up with the story of a woman who thinks she’s the queen of the world, but in the end she’s the queen of her backyard,” Souza said of her lyrics.
This is just one of many cultural clashes on Kachupada. The album is named after a traditional African potluck dish made of a mixture of all kinds of ingredients.
In addition to the different styles thrown together, the title also plays on the idea of food bringing people together.
“Music is also communication, and it gathers people. People are happy and together, so it was a nice feel for me to express,” Souza said.
This album was another collaboration with instrumentalist Theo Pas’cal, who Souza has been working with for the last 12 years. She said that as a result, working with Pas’cal is “a very natural process.”
Unlike some of her previous albums, there was no pre-production process in the making of Kachupada. Instead, Souza and Pas’cal went into the studio with the intention of capturing the spontaneity and improvisation of her music.
“From day to day these songs never sound the same, and that’s the good thing,” Souza said.
As well as capturing the natural flow of her music, Souza said this album is reflective of the last two years of her life.
“Right now I’m travelling and my music is going a lot of places,” she said. “I want to continue evolving and searching for my sound.”
Each album is like a milestone in her life, Souza said, and she is able to look back and watch her evolution over time. Souza likened her music to a journal, chronicling her growth as a musician and a person over time.
“Some day I’m going to look back and say ‘this was the sound of my 30s.’”
The latest step in this growth is her current tour of North America, which she finds to be very different than other places she has played. She said there are major differences between cultures and audiences, and that at each show there’s always new energy that she is collecting and giving away.
