Wildly and excitingly versatile Mexican American jazz singer, pianist and composer Julia Vari has enjoyed a prolific career since returning to Mexico City after studying musical theatre at NYU and classical voice and piano at the Eastman School of Music. Since releasing her debut album La Vida En Rosa in 2011, she has recorded five popular solo albums and performed at theatres, festivals and cultural venues throughout the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Europe.
Putting all those accomplishments aside, the good news on her latest collection Somos is that she’s introducing the grand wealth of all her talents and diverse language skills as if making an initial introduction.
In only seven tunes and 35 minutes, the multi-talented artist – vibing sensually and swinging artfully with three time Latin Grammy nominated Negroni’s trio (led by pianist Jose Negroni) – sings in four of the eight languages she knows (Spanish, English, Portuguese, French); showcases her operatic range, sultry coolness and playful swing-ability on a single tune (the dynamic opener “La Bikina”); creates a hip high flying re-imagining of Horace Silver’s “Song For My Father” which is most likely the song’s first ever rendition in Portuguese; and scats with playful razzle dazzle over one of Negroni’s most powerful piano improvisations on a fiery arrangement of “Nature Boy.”
Another charmer featuring her wordless vocalizing (at the start) is a sexy, high-spirited French and English spin through “C’est Si Bon, “,” which she and Negroni follow with a tenderly intimate, deeply emotional ballad arrangement of “Historia de un Amor.”