From ’80s pop to folk to classical; it was a long, strange musical trip that led vocalist Mari Rosa to Latin Jazz and Bossa Nova music.
But it was mostly her trilingual, multicultural upbringing that the Hoboken resident said steered her toward the sultrier styles of music.
After hearing the tracks on her new album Honeyspot, listeners will be glad Rosa headed in that direction. Her voice is as mellifluous as the album name indicates, flowing smoothly as she shifts between different musical styles and different languages (she sings in Spanish, English and Portuguese).
Rosa dazzles on even the album’s cover tunes, which include Latin and Bossa standards such as “Besame Mucho” and “So nice (summer samba),” the Marcos Valle tune made popular by Astrud Gilberto.
Rosa pegs the perfect vibe on familiar tunes, quite a feat considering that jazz did not come naturally to her. “I had to learn my jazz,” she said, explaining that she was originally a classical music major at Sarah Lawrence College, before switching to jazz.
“It wasn’t initially natural to me. It took a lot of listening,” she said.
And it has proved a smart move. Rosa is gaining national recognition as a jazz artist.
In 2005, she beat over 30,000 young contestants when she won a Billboard songwriter award for her song, “You mean the world to me.”
Influences
Her deep, rich voice makes her sound much older than she looks, which is somewhere in her twenties. “I never tell,” she says coyly. “I pull a major Eartha Kitt.”
But, she’s quick to add, “I assure you I’m younger than Eartha Kitt.”
That’s obvious. Petite in stature, with fiery red hair and perfectly coiled curls, Rosa looks about the age of Hudson County’s many young professionals, as she sips a cup of chamomile tea at a popular Hoboken java joint and talks about her new album.
“The album reflects my Latin roots as well as the quirkiness of a kid that grew up in the ’80s,” she said. She paused to reminisce about things like jelly sandals and 8-tracks, roller skating, and watching Footloose “300 times.”
“It definitely has a ’80s energy,” she concluded. “But it’s torchy and vampy too,” she added.
“I tried to create a concept album that people could relax to, and chill out to, and have romantic moments to.” And she is not shy about her concept for the album. “I definitely set out to create a make-out album. My goal as a band is to give that, a place to make your blood heat up and your spirit cool down,” Rosa said.
Rosa, who has two older brothers and an older sister, said her siblings also influenced her musical tastes. “My brothers liked rock. That’s how I got my Metallica, and my Black Sabbath. Very early on I was exposed to music that I probably would have missed,” she said.
On her own, Rosa was attracted to artists from the Athens, GA scene, such as REM and the B52s. But when she first seriously contemplated a musical career, it wasn’t in pop or rock or jazz.
“I thought I was going to be a folk rock artist,” she said. “I got into the stories. I loved the simpleness that it embodied. For me it was an area of music that lacked ego.”
A lesson in lyrical linguistics
Rosa turned to the great singer-songwriters of Latin America, drawing on her father’s Argentine-Italian roots. She lists Chilean musicians Victor Jara and Violeta Parra as being big influences.
“I came to really appreciate the poetry of the lyrics,” she said. “And the paradigms that different languages create through music.”
“It has influenced my songwriting as well,” she added.
Rosa attributed this to the different languages she heard growing up, both spoken and in music.
“There’s a lot we absorb in our environments, especially sonically, that’s important,” she said. “I grew up speaking English, Spanish and Italian at home. My family also speaks some Neopolitan. I usually heard some bastardized form of all of them. We needed police in my house to say “speak one language!” she said, laughing. “Everyone spoke what they felt like speaking.”
“It was very lively and exciting. It’s also what led me to study language in college in addition to music,” she explained.
Rosa recalled hearing lots of tango and Mediterranean folk music, as well as Spanish, Italian and Latin American pop at home as a child, which she often incorporates into her music.
“I definitely draw inspiration from Italian folk tunes,” she said. “The Mediterranean aesthetic is part of my subconscious.”
As she got older, Rosa said, she found her way toward Brazilian music, and learned the basics of Brazilian Portuguese through music.
“I never actually took a class in Portuguese,” she confessed.
She said she learned how to speak with a Rio accent from Jobim’s music.
“The Rio accent has a strong “g” sound,” she said. “It’s really sensual.”
The Honeyspot
Honeyspot dropped in July, and the single of the same name is available for free on Rosa’s MySpace page and her website, www.marirosa.com.
She explains how she came up with the name for the album and the single: “It’s such an unromantic story,” she confessed. “I was driving from New York to Boston and I saw a sign in Connecticut-which, no offense, has to be one of the less sexy states of the union – that said ‘Honeyspot.'” Rosa said she doesn’t remember what the sign was for, or which highway it was on.
“I still don’t know what it was, but I know what it has become to me,” she said.
So what does it mean to her?
“To me the honey spot is the mouth,” she said. “But some people get fresh,” she added.
What’s next?
Rosa moved to Hoboken last April. When she’s not performing or promoting her album, she works as a piano teacher.
“Hoboken is really pretty,” said Rosa, who came to New York a year after graduating college, and lived in different parts of Manhattan before crossing the river into Jersey.
“It’s cleaner, more civilized. It lacks the grit.”
She has not yet had the chance to perform in Hudson County, partly because, “they feature more of the rock crowd,” she said.
Rosa plays at places like Cecil’s Jazz Club in West Orange, and several clubs in New York. She is currently working on organizing tours for her and her band.
“My immediate goal is to organize a West coast tour at the beginning of ’08,” she said.
For more information, visit www.marirosa.com
Comments on this piece can be sent to mfriedman@hudsonreporter.com