Kenia started her own label, Mooka Records, with the release of her Ivan Lins tribute, Project: Ivan Lins, in 1997. In a perfect world, the Brazilian jazz-pop singer would have used Mooka to rapidly increase the size of her catalog. But her next Mooka release, Simply Kenia, didn't come out until 2008. As it turns out, the Kenia of the late 2000s isn't much different from the Kenia of the 1980s and 1990s; her voice has deepened a bit, but stylistically, not much has changed. Kenia still favors a rhythmic yet easygoing blend of Brazilian jazz and Brazilian pop, and she is still as expressive in English as she in Portuguese. Kenia is in very good form on Portuguese-language offerings like Jair de Oliveira's "Olga Aí" and João Bosco's "Nacão," but the Astrud Gilberto-influenced singer doesn't lose anything emotionally when she switches to English on Djavan's "Avião" (Kenia performs lyrics by singer Lorraine Feather instead of Djavan's lyrics), Willie Nelson's "Crazy" (which was a major hit for the late country-pop icon Patsy Cline in 1961), and the haunting standard "Angel Eyes." Although the latter is one of those standards that has been beaten to death in the jazz world, it hasn't received a lot of Brazilian interpretations -- and the song is perfect for expressing the mood/feeling that Brazilians call saudade. It should be noted that Kenia performs three different versions of "Crazy"; she performs Nelson's original English-language lyrics as well as new versions in Portuguese and Spanish, and in all three versions, a song that started out in country-pop has no problem lending itself to Brazilian rhythms. It should also be noted that on Pixinguinha's "Lamentos," Kenia explores something she didn't explore on previous albums: choro. But all things considered, Simply Kenia pretty much picks up where her '80s and '90s releases left off -- and it does so with consistently pleasing results.
© Alex Henderson /TiVo