It must be hard sometimes for Luciana Souza to keep track of who she is night to night, musically speaking.

The tour she's on right now has already seen her in an intimate jazz/bossa nova residency at San Francisco Performances, working in a trio format at New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center and teaming in her mezzo-soprano persona with dancer Rosa Collantes for three shows with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, sandwiched around a brief Spain tour. Still to come are another dance/orchestra program in Chicago's Millennium Park series with the Luna Negra company, more shows in the San Francisco gig and, next April, two Easter performances in the lead vocal role of Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov's St. Mark Passion with the La Pasion Orchestra at the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

On recordings she's explored her Brazilian bossa nova roots, the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Elizabeth Bishop, and the songwriting of Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon and other greats of her adopted home in the U.S. She's been featured on several ambitious works by Around the World alumnus Golijov, collaborated with Herbie Hancock, Simon and many others, sung in various film soundtracks including with her friend (and another Around the World alumma) Rebecca Pidgeon for David Mamet's 'Redbelt.' And so on.

In his first-ever New York Times Op-Ed piece, guest columnist Bono tackled an unexpected subject on Sunday. The U2 frontman took the opportunity to pay homage to the late, great Frank Sinatra.

In a piece titled 'Notes From the Chairman,' Bono writes of how he first met and befriended Sinatra when recording 'I've Got You Under My Skin' for his 1993 'Duets' album. In appreciation, Sinatra -- who dabbled in painting -- gave Bono one of his canvases, titled 'Jazz.'

"We had spent some time in his house in Palm Springs which was a thrill -- looking out onto the desert and hills, no gingham for miles," Bono writes. "Plenty of miles, though, Miles Davis. And plenty of talk of jazz. That's when he showed me the painting. I was thinking the circles were like the diameter of a horn, the bell of a trumpet, so I said so."

'I've Got You Under My Skin'
--Bono and Frank Sinatra (1993)

This Cole Porter standard had been a Sinatra mainstay for decades when some marketing genius decided Ol' Blue Eyes should cut the 'Duets' album with contemporary singers. The album's lowlight is unquestionably Bono, whose melodramatic crooning wanders perilously close to whale song. It's fun to imagine Sinatra's rising anger as Bono starts moaning like a deranged ghost.

On This Date in 1940: 'I'll Never Smile Again,' by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, with Frank Sinatra on lead vocals, is the first song to reach No. 1 on Billboard's new singles chart.

The Almanac Advises for July 20: "Having a No. 1 hit single is no guarantee of continued success. The annals of popular music are rife with acts that, after having reached the top of the charts, are never to be heard from again."

Neil Diamond has been holed up at the Arc Angel, the L.A. studio he's called home for more than three decades, working on his new album, 'Home Before Dark.' Before he plays it across the U.S., Diamond has an unlikely engagement: A two-night appearance on 'American Idol.' The show will introduce the songwriter behind the Monkees' 'I'm a Believer,' UB40's 'Red, Red Wine' and Urge Overkill's 'Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon' (not to mention his own 'Sweet Caroline' and 'I Am...I Said)' to a new generation of music devotees.

The release of the sublimely intimate, Rick Rubin-produced 'Home' -- which features a duet with the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines -- reminds us where else fans should be able to catch a glimpse of Diamond: In the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Spinner caught up with the legendary singer-songwriter to talk about everything from Frank Sinatra to the mysteries of songwriting.

How was working with Rick Rubin for the second time different from the first?

It was pretty easy both times, although it was probably more [a process of] getting to know each other the first time. Maybe I was a little more nervous the first time working with these musicians, the first time working with Rick. You put yourself in somebody's hands and you really don't know what they're going to do. But as it progressed, it became apparent that it was going to be comfortable and it was going to be good. This one was a lot easier. There were less songs. I knew the musicians. We'd done an entire album together. You get to know people pretty good working that close.

Did that relaxation influence the album?

It did influence the writing, but I'm not really sure how. See, I hadn't written an original album .... I started really with the 'Tennessee Moon' album, co-writing all the songs. It was intentional to work with a lot of different writers in Nashville. I had a lot of fun. That started to get the barnacles and rust off of my writing chops. Then, 'Three Chord Opera' was maybe all mine. That continued that process of the rust falling off. And '12 Songs' took me just a little bit further. I was flying with this one. It's about as good as I can get as a writer. I was in the groove. I knew what I wanted and when I heard something that I liked, I knew when to follow up on it.

What's the sound of the city? The great ones should come with a soundtrack. Chicago has the electric blues; San Francisco has psychedelic rock. New York is Gershwin, or the Ramones. Even long-suffering Detroit remains defined by the Motown sound.

But what about states? Can any American state, as vast and diverse as most of them are, claim a distinct, easily identified contribution to pop music? If Louisiana gave us jazz and Hawaii sounds like the ukulele, what about, say, Ohio?

In 'Hang On Sloopy: The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ohio,' rock writer Nick Talevski makes a case that the Buckeye state, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Toledo Mud Hens, is an underrated source of great pop and rock. The Pretenders, Devo, the O'Jays, Dean Martin, Macy Gray, Marilyn Manson: Like the notion of Middle America, which Ohio epitomizes every election cycle, the writer points out that the state's musical output has something for everybody.

But it would be a frightening world indeed if you could call the intersection of Dean Martin and Marilyn Manson a real pop watershed. New Jersey, on the other hand – now there's a place with a song in its heart.

That song is most likely by Frank Sinatra or Bruce Springsteen. Either way, according to several Joisey-ites interviewed by the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis (where the Broadway hit 'Jersey Boys' is set to open), it does in fact represent a distinctive sound.

The Garden State's ubiquitous smokestacks instill a sense of blue-collar pride, as one native notes, and its ethnic mix of Italian, black and Jewish – all significant pieces of the rock 'n' roll puzzle – makes for "a very potent combination in popular music," as Springsteen chronicler Robert Santelli observes. As Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers told the Star-Tribune, the "armpit of America" (as Jersey is so fondly known) is actually "the muscle of America." And we wouldn't want to arm-wrestle him.

Next: Jamming Is Dreamy

"I am a thing of beauty."
-- Frank Sinatra

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