Sabrina Malheiros is a singer of musica popular brasiliera, aka Brazilian Popular Music.  It has also been described as 21st Century Bossa Nova. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Sabrina is the daughter of Alex Malheiros the bass player for funk-jazz band Azymuth.  She started singing at a young age, and New Morning is her 3rd album, released in 2009.

After listening to a few cuts on LastFM, I decided to download it along with a few other Brazlian artists from iTunes. I am pleased to see that not only does iTunes have the best Norwegian black metal bands, but it also has the prettiest bossa nova singers of Brazil.


New Morning

First, Sabrina has a very pleasant and listenable voice, she is a lot like her contemporaries Bebel Gilberto and Ceu (although Bebel is still my favorite).  Sabrina's music also seems the furthest from what I would identify as Brazilian. Except for her Portugeuse lyrics, if someone said this was a contemporary jazz band from the US, I wouldn't question it.   Nevertheless, if you really listen, the music does have that Brazilian sound to it, and made me feel like I was on vacation.

You can hear both acoustic and electric guitars, and lots of synthesizers in the music. The synthesizers add in orchestral style effects, but I think it would have sounded better with actual flutes, horns and strings. (If they were actually used, my apologies, it had that 70s synth quality about it).

I did recognize one song right away, Sabrina covers Carole King's It's Too Late.  Sabrina does not belt out the song the way King did, but she makes it her own, and offers a nice jazz style interpretation of the song.  To me, a good cover shouldn't try to imitate the original anyway, but offer the artists own interpretation.  It was also the only song sung in English besided the title track, New Morning. The lyrics for the title track weren't terribly inspirational, just repeating new morning, new morning, it's a new morning throughtout the song.

I did enjoy this album, but I can't say that any particular song caught my ear the way that many of the artists did.  I also found that often the use of synthesizers was a bit overdone, giving some songs an overproduced feeling.  The album can easily fade into the background instead of inviting serious listening.

Summary

This album was enjoyable enough, but nothing about the music really stood out to make it more than average. Sabrina Malheiros is clearly a talented and pleasant singer, I just found myself preferring the other Brazilian artists that I have been listening too.  I gave New Morning 3 stars and would recommend it for a spin.  She is certainly worth looking up on youtube or lastfm (or your music site of choice), if you like jazz or Brazilian music.

Other Brazilian Musicians, A Canadian singing Brazilian Music and a Brazilian singing David Bowie

Bebel Gilberto (2004)
Bebel Gilberto - Tanto Tempo
Bebel Gilberto - Tanto Tempo Remixes
Joao Gilberto Live in Montreux
Antonio Carlos Jobim - Terra Brasilis
Pure Brazil - The Girls of Ipanema
Gilberto / Getz
Diana Krall - Quiet Nights
Ceu
Sabrina Malheiros - New Morning
Seu Jorge - The Life Aquatic Sessions

Recommended: Yes