Two things are surprising about Houston jazz singer Kristine Mills’s latest release, bossanovafied. One, the bossa nova/samba beat lasts the entire album without growing tiresome. Two, on her third album, Mills wrote or cowrote all the music and lyrics for the first time. Recorded in Rio de Janeiro with Brazilian pianist and collaborator Paulo Midosi, bossanovafied is polished and sophisticated from start to finish. Vocally, Mills goes from fragile, barely-there whispers to unleashed wails and, even among the uniformly excellent tunes, a few still manage to stand out. Most notable is “Sweet Sorrow”; cowritten by David Schneider, lyrics like “I can say good-bye with the best of them / I can learn to love but not too much / I can do these things / Yet still I find I can’t get you out of my mind” are Mills’s signature blend of delicate and strong, classic and new.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.