Yes, I know I just caught pianist Vardan Ovsepian with his chamber orchestra with vocalist Tatiana Parra, but this time the roles are reversed, and the band has been filtered. Tatiana, just landed from her home country of Brazil a few months ago, is making an impressive name for herself in a variety of settings. This time out, in the upscale Vibrato Jazz Grill, she and Ovsepian/p, Zach Harmon/dr and Edwin Livingston/b delivered music from her home country and dna with a mix of modern Brazilia as well as classic bossa nova.
Ovsepian’s trio opened up the hour long set with a rich and thoughtfully deep take of “Ignorant Boy,” while an agonizing “So In Love” featured Ovsepian’s patented mix of Eastern European depth and modern melodicism. With the band warmed up like a V8, Parra enters, and with a demeanor as cheerful as her voice plunges like a cliff diver into a optimistically sensual take of “Felicidade.” With Ovsepian’s pensive piano as the intro and first supporting partner, Parra delicately pleaded on an ebullient “Dindi” with a voice both vulnerable and reassuring. A take of Jobim’s “Wave” had the band kinetically bouncing through the theme while Parra body surfed over the low and high tides with an enticing control of dynamics, going from a small tide pool to 10 foot swell with the deftness of a long boarder. Sleek and celebratory with a dash of mystery, she took modern composer Chico Pinheiro’s “Tempestade” and closed out the set with a combination of sleeky style and underlying mystery that is rarely packaged these days.
Both singer and pianist are making some fascinating sounds and rhythms, and if you want something fresh and new that isn’t self indulgently cacophonic, this team is the best place to start. If they do an album together, it’s going to be a keeper!
www.vibrato.herbalpertpresents.com
