My Tunes
Mili Bermejo
Some years ago, way back before iTunes when people still listened to the radio to get their music, there was a show I never missed on this college radio station called “Voz Latina” (Latin Voice), DJ’d by Lisa Levy. When I say I never missed it, I mean I never EVER missed it. It was like the 1940’s in my house. If I was out, I’d haul ass getting home so I could lock myself in my room and listen to my radio without anyone bothering me. She played some of the best Jazz I’d ever heard in my life. Not that “smooth” jazz crap people most think is Jazz. I mean the real thing. But being a proud Latina, she absolutely loved showcasing Latin Jazz. This was a Jazz unlike any I’d ever heard before…it was most definitely Jazz, but this was a unique expression of Jazz that was so powerful that it really existed in its own space. That was the first and last time I heard the voice of Mili Bermejo, as she sang “Identidad” (Identity). It never came on the radio again. I never even heard the name of the song.
Mili Bermejo
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The moment she started singing, I fell head over heels in love with the sound of her amazing voice. And her lyrics! She sings in Spanish (she’s Argentine), and luckily for me, I speak Spanish because translation simply doesn’t do them justice. The lyrics were just poetry! This composition was ethereal, haunting. She’s not at all what you’d think of as a typical Jazz singer. For me, as a Black woman raised on Jazz from the cradle, this was really weird because my dad basically spoon-fed me Nancy Wilson, Betty Carter, and Sarah Vaughn from the moment I got here. But Mili taught me a thing or two about singing Jazz. She had her own sound that didn’t sound anything at all like the Jazz I knew, but she did the damned thing…and did it her way. I couldn’t get that song out of my head. It was like somebody had nailed it there. I HAD to find it, but it was just nowhere.