jazz
4-6pm
$10 donation

Mili Bermejo, voice/composer; Vardan Ovsepian, piano; Dan Greenspan, bass

Veteran Boston-based vocalist/composer Mili Bermejo will make her Zeitgeist Gallery debut with her trio on Sunday, May 22nd at 4pm. The group, which now features noted local pianist and Fresh Sound New Talent recording artist Vardan Ovsepian, will be performing selections from its 2004 release, A Time for Love (Pentagrama).

Jon Garelick of the Boston Phoenix calls Ms. Bermejo “a special figure: a composer and vocalist who combines the folkloric traditions of South America, the Caribbean, and her native Mexico with the modern pop of those regions and American jazz. This is not pastiche-world music but an integrated artistic vision. She’s also a wonderful singer who can convey the meaning of her songs in all languages.” Her thoughtful and powerfully affirmative music for this intimate, drummer-less jazz trio was inspired by personal experiences related to the loss of two close family members and recent social/political unrest around the world.

“Mili Bermejo remains one of the most, if not the absolutely most, emotive singer of Latin Jazz music currently recording,” wrote Cadence reviewer Alan Bargebuhr. “[She is] the Latin equivalent of Abbey Lincoln…a singer/composer who challenges us with her musical honesty.” Boston Magazine’s James Isaacs described her style as “part poetry-folk, part Sarah Vaughn sophistication” and the Boston Globe’s Bob Blumenthal called her music the place “where jazz meets Latin with elegance and soul.” A 20-year veteran of the Berklee College of Music faculty, and the first woman to receive the prestigious Achievement in Jazz Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), Ms. Bermejo is also the recipient of multiple grants from Meet the Composer and a former Jazz Ambassador for the United States Information

Media Contact for Mili Bermejo:
Scott Menhinick, Improvised Communications
(617) 489-6561
scott@improvisedcommunications.com