"SITTI IN THE CITY"

Sitti Navarro, the Philippines’ Queen of Bossa Nova, is coming to the Big Apple on Sept. 5 in a one-night engagement at the Rebel Club in Manhattan. “Sitti in the City,” presented by AAR Productions, will showcase the talent of an impeccable artist who gave Filipinos’ favorite pop songs a twist of her bossa.

Sitti, whose name means princess in the Muslim dialect, became the toast of the music industry when she sprung into the music scene in 2004 and immediately earned the title Bossa Nova Diva. Her relaxed singing style and soothing voice lingers above the complex harmonies of jazz and samba-influenced Brazilian genre, effortlessly gelling lyrics and music together.

Her eyes light up when she talks about Bossa Nova. “What I really like best about bossa nova is that the lyrics, message and music is profound,” she says. “Even if it's melancholic at times, it’s still easy on the ears.” Sitti got the biggest break in her singing career when Warner Music Philippines decided to cut her solo album, the highly-successful Café Bossa. It contains 18 tracks of contemporary songs and pop, jazz standards sung in her cool, bossa style. Its carrier single, “Tattooed On My Mind,” a cover of D’ Sound, has become an instant classic and still enjoys up to now good airplay on radio. Her versions of Everything But The Girl’s “I Didn’t Know I Was Looking For Love” and Michael Franks’ “Lady Wants To Know” also became big hits.

The birth of Sitti as a bossa nova performer began in a piano bar called “Stonehouse,” where she started singing at 19 and honed her craft. Accompanied by a keyboardist, she enthralled regulars with the usual piano bar favorites like those from the 1950 to 1960s. But there was something about her voice that reminded listeners of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Sergio Mendes, of bikini-clad Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro. Someone suggested for her to learn bossa nova, which she liked at once. Soon, she was singing Jobim’s “Girl From Ipanema” as easy as explaining to someone the way to the comfort room. Over the years, Sitti has managed to reinterpret other lounge favorites like “Tattooed On My Mind,” “At 17,” “I Didn’t Know I Was Looking for Love,” “Lady Wants to Know,” among others, along the bossa nova strain.

Writer Totel V. De Jesus said listening to Sitti for the first time “gave me the impression that her voice flutters over the notes. She sings as if she’s Brazilian, someone who has been listening to Sergio Mendes and Jobim while still in her mother’s womb.” Sitti, then a business economics major at the UP-Diliman, also had gigs in Calesa Bar and other hotel lounges. She landed hosting jobs, including the Travel Show on Studio 23. “But I managed to adjust to the situation with my busy schedule. I made sure my studies didn’t suffer,” she said. Eventually, luck came pouring in as Pinoy listeners got bored with the usual acoustic stuff and other generic chill-out acts. In 2004, Sitti was signed in as recording artist by Warner Music Philippines. The following year, “Café Bossa” came out, easily finding its way to the ears of people her age. “Pinoy listeners are always looking for a new sound. Chill-out music has become bossa nova,” remarked the album’s executive producer and A&R manager Ricky Ilacad.

For first-timers, bossa nova was born on the beaches of Brazil, especially Rio de Janeiro, sometime in the late 1950s, when the affluent sunbathing mestizos and mulattos sipped and gulped cerveza while staring at voluptuous bikini-clad Brazilian babes. It is dubbed “the music of the carefree rich” because its subjects were about lustful love, the beach, beautiful women, albeit the bohemian life of the macho Brazilian male. It was the opposite of samba, which the Brazilian working class patronized. A perfect proof is bossa nova’s still most popular song “The Girl from Ipanema.” Deconstructing bossa nova, musically it follows the unpredictable chord progression of jazz with drum beats akin to samba. And all this information Sitti knows by heart, having done her assignment like any avid student would. Ask her anything about bossa nova and she would answer without a pause. “Of course, I did my research, more than learning the songs. It pays to know the background, or the story behind. The more I can relate to the genre,” she intimated, with a chuckle that almost sounded like a bird chirping.

Sitti’s New York City show is sponsored by Aurora’s Hairport, Forex, Long Cheng Supermarket, S.E.M. Travel, Patient 1st Dental Care, Exxon Mobil, Perlas ng Silangan, Nitelife Unlimited, SCAT Productions, MP Ent., Serendipity Hype and Klara Madlin Real Estate.

Rebel Club is located at 251 West 30th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues). Show starts at 7 p.m., doors open at 6. Must have ID; 18 to party, 21 to drink. Free raffle of iPod Touch. For tickets ($40 SRO limited capacity), call 201.918.9433, 732.319.0562, 848.467.6505, 908.906.9788, 917.691.2335, 201.982.4520 or 917.450.3015. For more information please visit www.aar-productions.com.

MEET AND GREET with MS. SITTI NAVARRO at Perlas ng Silangan Restaurant 69-09 Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, New York 11377, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008 @ 8 pm. Door Entrance: $5.00 or Ticket Holders. For other details, please call 718-779-2991 / 718-779-3272 / 917-691-2335