'The Independent Music Show Magazine' May 2021 | Page 5

Featured Artist

30 - April - 2021

Meza is musically inspired by jazz guitarists like George Benson and Pat Metheny as well as being influenced by South American music and folk, she first studied with Jorge Vidal and Jorge Díaz.

Increasingly oriented to Claudia Acuña from the mid-2000s

she worked on the jazz scene of her home-town, where her

first recording Giovanni Cultrera, Espinoza y Cia

(Navidad en Jazz) was released in 2005. In 2007 she

presented her debut album Skylark (Stateside).

In 2009 Meza moved to New York to study guitar at

The New School with Peter Bernstein, Vic Juris

and Steve Cardenas. Since then she also has

worked on the New York jazz scene with

Ryan Keberle (Into the Zone, 2014), Lucas

Pino, Fabian Almazan and directs her

own jazz octet,

The Nectar Orchestra.

She recorded for

Sunnyside Records the

album Traces (2016, with

Shai Maestro, Matt Penman,

Kendrick Scott, Bashiri

Johnson, Jody Redhage, Sachal

Vasandani), sings Spanish and

English, and won two Independent

Music Awards as the Best Adult

Contemporary Album and Best Latin

Song ("Para Volar"). Also on the albums Find

the Common, Shine a Light by Ryan Keberle

and Sounds from the Deep Field by Bryan

Copeland she seemed outstanding in the

opinion of the critics

As a singer she can also be heard on Carolina

Calvache's Ballad "La Última Vez". In 2017 the

Camila Meza Quartet performed at the Festival

Jazzahead. The following year she brought Gina

Schwarz as part of her Pannonica project, Porgy & Bess in

Vienna. Meza was nominated in the category

of guitarist and female singer as a Rising Star

in the critics poll of the Down Beat in 2018..

Nate Chinen described Meza's vocals as "an

appealing combination of lightness and depth, that

sings with a bright, clear voice against the agile uproar

of a world-class band." in The New York Times.

The discographer Tom Lord lists them between 2005 and 2015 with participation in eight recording sessions.