The three San Diego concerts you will totally regret missing in the coming week

Luciana Souza & Marcel Camargo: "New Moon"

Vocal marvel Luciana Souza and the nimble guitarist Marcel Carmago are both natives of São Paulo, Brazil, and share a keen sense of reverence and adventure in their music.

Souza, a Grammy Award-winner with 15 solo albums to her credit, soars with equal ease whether singing heartfelt lyrics or wordless melodies. She counts Herbie Hancock, Paul Simon, Bobby McFerrin, the New York Philharmonic, Maria Schneider, Hermeto Pascoal. The Yellowjackets, Danilo Perez, Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, Germany’s WDR Big Band and San Diego-bred troubadour Stephen Bishop among her many collaborators. She is also an associate professor of jazz voice at USC’s Thornton School of Music.

Carmago, who has a degree in ethnomusicology, is a skilled jazz player who is also adept on the four-string cavaquinho. He is perhaps best known for his instrumental work with singers Michael Bublé and Gretchen Parlato, and as an orchestrator for San Diego singer-songwriter Jason Mraz.

Carmago and Souza's upcoming album, "New Moon," will team them with a string quartet, as will their concert here. Exactly what they are going to perform remains to be determined, since the album of new songs and newly recast Brazilian classics is still a work in progress.

But given the stellar quality of Souza and Carmago's previous concerts here - her several times as a headliner, he as the guitarist and music director in singer Parlato's band - you can expect something special, especially since their La Jolla performance will be the world premiere of their “New Moon” project.

7:30 p.m. next Friday, April 24. Athenaeum Jazz at The Scripps Research Auditorium, 10620 John Jay Hopkins Drive, La Jolla. $53-$58. (858) 454-5872. ljathenaeum.org

Patrick Watson

The first French-language song to surpass the billion-streams mark on Spotify, Patrick Watson’s haunting, piano-and-voice lullaby, “Je te laisserai des mots” (“I Will Leave You Words”), had an unusually long gestation period before it became an international sensation during the COVID pandemic shutdown.

A veteran film composer with more than 15 movie scores to his credit, Watson wrote “Je te laisserai des mots” for the 2009 Catherine Deneuve film, “Mères et Filles,” then added it as a bonus track to the 2015 reissue of his self-titled 2001 debut album.

The song’s impact was negligible - until the pandemic, when a fan made a video to accompany “Je te laisserai des mots” and posted it online.

Et voila!

As of last year, the song has inspired more than 200,000 TikTok videos that in turn have earned more than 60 billion TikTok plays.

That a hushed ballad would be so widely embraced is remarkable. It’s even more remarkable coming from a soft-spoken musical auteur, who seems more comfortable conducting orchestras and composing than he does as a no-longer-under-the-radar indie-pop anomaly whose singing voice brings to mind Jeff Buckley, Bon Iver and Rufus Wainwright in their most melancholic moments.

A California native who grew up in Montreal, Watson is also the leader of a four-piece band - .also called Patrick Watson. The group is now on tour to promote the enchanting 2025 album, “Uh Oh,” which offers an understated mix of chamber-pop, neo-classical, electronica and finely honed experimental music.

7 p.m. Wednesday. UC San Diego’s Epstein Family Amphitheater, 9480 Innovation Lane, La Jolla. $30-$55. artpower.ucsd.edu

Tardigrade Collective, Corima and Phantom Twins

Saxophones and a quest for aural adventure are two common denominators shared by the all-instrumental, three-man San Diego band Tardigrade Collective and the one-woman, four-man Texas band band Corima.

Haling from El Paso, Corima draws from the genre-blurring RIO (short for Rock In Opposition) movement, which was pioneered in the 1970s by the English-American band Henry Cow, and from zeuh,l the jazz/rock/classical synthesis pioneered in the late 1960s by the French band Magma.

The even more eclectic Tardigrade Collective teams tenor saxophonist Bradley Nash, electric guitarist, bassist and synthesizer player Ryan Bradley and drummer (and UC San Diego alum) Nolan Fewell, who by day is an associate laboratory director at Mobilab Environmental Determinations.

Clocking in at just over 24 minutes, Tardigrade Collective’s new three-song EP, “Live At Studio West,” is an impressive work that spotlights the trio’s instrumental ferocity, improvisational ingenutiy and finesse in equal measure.

Arrive early to hear the accomplished San Diego band Phantom Twins. Its gifted singer, Anastasya Korol, released an impressive 2023 EP, “Lush Life,” that showcases her supple jazz prowess. She shines just as brightly with Phantom Twins, whose 2019 album, “Circuitry,” is also well worth checking out.

7 p.m. Monday, April 20. The Banshee Bar, 3519 El Cajon Boulevard, City Heights. $9.07 (must be 21 or older to attend). thebansheebar.com/events

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 6:25 AM.