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.

To mark the launch of Spinner Canada, we're doing an in-depth series on the Canadian indie music scene that has, in recent years, taken the world by storm. In Part I we explore the foundation laid in the 1980s and '90s while Part II examines this decade's explosion and Part III will look towards the next wave.

Oh, Canada: An Intro

It may be easily forgotten in our current Age of Feist, but the turn of the 21st century was not kind to Canada's international musical reputation. The fledgling maple music industry had found its footing in the late '80s and early '90s with bands like Sloan, Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo. But unlike Alanis, Sarah and Celine, these great Canadian indie/alternative hopes couldn't quite make it across the border.

The prevailing opinion, both nationally and abroad, was that Canada would remain relegated to vapid pop production. But in basements and lofts around the nation's biggest cities – Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – bands such as Broken Social Scene, the New Pornographers, the Dears, the Stills, Stars and Arcade Fire were laying down the foundation for the musical maelstrom that was to come.

On This Date in 1997: Joni Mitchell is reunited with Kilauren Gibb, the infant daughter the singer-songwriter gave up for adoption in 1965.

The Almanac Advises for April 2: "Most domesticated animals can possess a strong maternal instinct. Though it may not manifest during pregnancy, it may appear and grow more intense after giving birth."

Herbie Hancock's Best Album of the Year Grammy win for his latest effort, 'River: The Joni Letters,' was certainly the night's biggest shock and arguably upset, but all the better to bring attention to the inspiration behind the album: Joni Mitchell. "I have a deep respect for Joni and what she stands for," Hancock told Spinner. "I'm hoping people get to see what she's about and what her character is about. She's a person that stands up for what she believes in. That's what I like about her."

Hancock will surely see interest in his muse surge, as the win brings awareness of the folk icon to new generations. But when asked if he felt like an ambassador of Mitchell's music, Hancock was quick to shun the title. "No, I don't feel that way," he said. "That may be a function that is a result of this record [and] I'm hoping that it can be."

Jazz legend Herbie Hancock left folks slack-jawed as he accepted the Grammy award for Album of the Year for his latest effort, 'River: The Joni Letters' -- an honor expected to go to the highly-favored Amy Winehouse, who, up until the announcement, had won 5 of her six nominations. Presented the award by Usher and Quincy Jones, Hancock honored many of his forebears during his acceptance speech, particularly Miles Davis, as well as the inspiration behind the album: Joni Mitchell.

"When I looked at her material, I looked at the full spectrum -- from her earlier work to some of her later stuff," he told Spinner in September. "I didn't want to have it all come from one record. We didn't want to do only the most popular stuff that she did; we wanted to do some of the more obscure things, too. And you just have a nice variety of material to explore on the recording."

Meanwhile, Hancock also upset Kanye West, whose latest, 'The Graduation,' won Best Rap Album earlier in the evening. It was just one of four wins for West, who, despite being nominated for Album of the Year with each successive release, has yet to walk away with night's biggest honor.

While Okkervil River have been known to trot out some weirdly wonderful covers during their live shows, those pleasures have usually been fleeting, disappearing into a haze of Pabst Blue Ribbon for the vast majority of gig-goers. Well, the Austin-via-New Hampshire aggregation decided to dust the cobwebs off a passel of their most karaoke-ready tunes for a mixtape, titled 'Golden Opportunities,' which they're handing out as a freebie to help fans celebrate the season.

The eight-song collection, culled from live shows, rehearsals and impromptu hotel room jam sessions, includes covers of Joni Mitchell's 'The Blonde in the Bleachers' (from which Okkervil frontman Will Sheff cribbed the title of 'You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock 'n' Roll Man' off his band's recent 'The Stage Names' album), Randy Newman's 'Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear' and John Cale's 'Antarctica Starts Here.' And since 'tis the season for such things, the band also includes one original: a live version of their early favorite 'Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas.' To download the whole shebang, including some snazzy digital artwork, go to http://www.okkervilriver.com/

'River'
--Joni Mitchell (1971)

It's not technically a Christmas song -- it's your basic garden-variety "Look-what-I've-gone-and-done" lost-love song. But Joni's from Canada, and when they start "putting up reindeer" in L.A., she's hopelessly homesick. She wishes she had a river to skate on, long enough so she could fly. But she's stuck in the crazy scene in La La Land, where the only river is a dry concrete aqueduct.

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