Jun 17, 2025 11:12 AM
Kandace Springs Sings Billie Holiday
When it came time to pose for the cover of her new album, Lady In Satin — a tribute to Billie Holiday’s 1958…
Karen Souza’s album Velvet Vault is a mix of pop and rock covers and jazz standards.
(Photo: Courtesy of the Artist)Karen Souza has a voice that can make any song sound like an intimate confession. “Her voice is like a massage,” said Tom “Bones” Malone, the trombonist and former Saturday Night Live bandleader, who collaborated with the singer on her new album, Velvet Vault (Music Brokers).
Born in the rural La Pampa province of Argentina, Souza got her start singing electronic club music under various pseudonyms. She hadn’t considered a career as a jazz singer until she was invited in 2005 to contribute to a Warner Bros. compilation series called Jazz And ’80s, which reimagined that decade’s pop hits in a variety of jazz settings. The series was an international hit, eventually expanding to include other decades, and Souza found herself tapped repeatedly for her smoky sound, helping turn The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” into a mellow bossa nova and Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” into a Peggy Lee-style swinging romp.
The success of Jazz And ’80s helped launch Souza onto the international jazz circuit. Velvet Vault was made in a globetrotting fashion, with elements recorded in Brazil, Colombia, New York, Tokyo and Buenos Aires, as well as songwriting sessions in Los Angeles with Grammy-nominated lyricist Pamela Oland.
Unlike her previous albums, which were dedicated either entirely to originals (Hotel Souza) or pop and rock covers (Essentials and Essentials II), Velvet Vault is a mix of both, along with a few jazz standards. The result is a good representation of Souza’s live sets, as well as her eclectic tastes.
“The [genres] I love the most have that melancholic thing, you know?” she said, speaking by phone from her home in Buenos Aires. “I can interpret [when I] perform that kind of music.”
Souza brings a timeless quality to the material, whether it’s a standard like “I Fall In Love Too Easily”—rendered on Velvet Vault as a hat-tip to Chet Baker’s iconic version, complete with muted trumpet—or a recent indie-rock hit like MGMT’s “Kids,” which Souza, who also produced Velvet Vault, stripped of its original electronic instrumentation and cast as a ghostly piano ballad. “I enjoy those kinds of songs where I can [highlight] the lyrics and give it more power,” she explained.
Souza is looking forward to getting back on the road with this new batch of songs from every imaginable genre and era, all brought together in her hushed, samba-tinged style. “A good song, you can sing it in bossa, in jazz, in whatever,” she said. “It works because it’s a good song.” DB
“There’s nothing quite like it,” Springs says of working with an orchestra. “It’s 60 people working in harmony in the moment. Singing with them is kind of empowering but also humbling at the same time.”
Jun 17, 2025 11:12 AM
When it came time to pose for the cover of her new album, Lady In Satin — a tribute to Billie Holiday’s 1958…
James Brandon Lewis earned honors for Artist of the Year and Tenor Saxophonist of the Year. Three of his recordings placed in the Albums of the Year category.
Jul 17, 2025 12:44 PM
You see before you what we believe is the largest and most comprehensive Critics Poll in the history of jazz. DownBeat…
Galper was often regarded as an underrated master of his craft.
Jul 22, 2025 10:58 AM
Hal Galper, a pianist, composer and arranger who enjoyed a substantial performing career but made perhaps a deeper…
Chuck Mangione on the cover of the May 8, 1975, edition of DownBeat.
Jul 29, 2025 1:00 PM
Chuck Mangione, one of the most popular trumpeters in jazz history, passed away on July 24 at home in Rochester, New…
“Hamiet was one of the most underrated musicians ever,” says Whitaker of baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett.
Jul 8, 2025 7:30 AM
At 56, Rodney Whitaker, professor of jazz bass and director of jazz studies at Michigan State University, is equally…
