Luciana Souza Trio in concert January 30, 2010

San Francisco Performances is pleased to present the local debut of vocalist Luciana Souza's new trio, featuring fellow Brazilians Romero Lubambo on guitar and Cyro Baptista on percussion. The program will tap into Souza's wide-ranging career, with improvisations, Brazilian music and songs from her eighth CD, "Tide" (2009).

Nominated for a Grammy Award (Best Jazz Vocal Album), "Tide" includes new songs, musical settings of e.e. cummings' poetry and Paul Simon's "Amulet," which Simon and Souza performed together at his career retrospective last February. (Souza's husband/producer Larry Klein is nominated as Producer of the Year for the disc). Nominated three times previously, Souza landed her first Grammy for her role in the Klein-produced Herbie Hancock album, "River: The Joni Letters," an all-star session of songs by Klein's ex-wife, Joni Mitchell.

Souza was born in Sao Paulo, to a songwriter-guitarist father, Walter Santos, and poet mother, Tereza Souza, who together wrote songs that were recorded by Brazil's most popular stars. "My parents were my compost," she says. "I went to them with the music I was learning or interested in, and they would give me the foundation."

Souza is concluding a four-year stint as Jazz-Artist-in-Residence with San Francisco Performances. During that time, she has appeared in concert, as well as worked extensively with school children, celebrating poetry and, with music students, the samba.

Percussionist Baptista has been featured on more than 100 recordings and has performed with such artists as Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock, David Byrne and many others. The New York-based artist wrote the score for the "Water Is Life" film at San Francisco's new California Academy of Sciences.

Lubambo is founder of the all-Brazilian Trio de Paz, and has recorded and performed with Diana Krall, Yo-Yo Ma, Harry Belafonte, Herbie Mann, James Carter, Dianne Reeves and Regina Carter.

Official Website: http://www.performances.org