Brian Arsenault’s Short Takes: CDs by Lunasa and Olivia Foschi

Of Music Beyond Ireland and Back to Italy

By Brian Arsenault

LÚNASA

 Lúnasa with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra (Lúnasa Records)

Up the Irish. Up the rebels. I always used to like my cousin’s husband bellowing those calls to rising first thing in the morning.

To get your dose of real Irish instrumental music with St. Patrick’s day upon us, give a listen to Lúnasa (whistles, fiddle, pipes, etc.) with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra (Ireland’s national orchestra).

It’s all there: jaunty jigs, melancholy melodies, mad passion, soft beauty. A wall of sound created by traditional Irish acoustic instruments enhanced by the restrained but not understated playing of the orchestra. Phil Spector might dig it, if he digs anything these days.

There are wonderful moments on several selections when Lúnasa starts on its own for several bars and then the orchestra comes up behind in support. That very moment when the orchestra begins is just dazzling. Perfection.

The surprise of this album (for me at least) is the band taking listeners to Celtic regions beyond Ireland’s shore–Brittany in western France, the former kingdoms of Galicia and Asturias, still autonomous regions in northwest and northern Spain.

The “Breton Set” is one of the delights of the album.  It is akin to Irish music but somehow different, calling across centuries to one another.

But my favorite for spunk and joy is “Morning Nightcap”. That’s not an oxymoron, darlin,’ it’s Irish.

You can get this album on i-Tunes and such in time for St. Patrick’s Day but not till mid-April in CD form. Go figure.

And if you’re anywhere near Powell, Wyoming (is anything near Powell, Wyoming?) today, on the big day itself, you can see Lúnasa at Powell High School Auditorium. Try and figure.

Olivia Foschi

Perennial Dreamer (Olivia Foschi)

Olivia Foschi tells the listener to kick off shoes and pour a glass of wine. She wants the album “to take you to a comfortable, cozy place.” But I didn’t put the CD in the Bose to be comfortable and cozy. I’d like to be thrilled, dazzled, enchanted, maybe grabbed and shaken.

And at times, Olivia, you come close.

On “Bridge” you and the piano mastery of Miki Hayama chase each other and make a perfect match.

On “Legend of the Purple Valley,” you set the mood perfectly during the opening by singing notes only. We are among the violets.

In other places, even though you’re a match for the bevy of current female jazz singers in clarity, pitch and tone, real angel stuff, I think I’m hearing the self imposed limitations of extensive music schooling. Music school is great, I’m not against it, but have you noticed how many times they tell you what you can’t/shouldn’t/mustn’t do?

I just don’t hear a complete singing style of your own yet.  As a songwriter, though, you’re hitting a nice stride.  “Disillusionment,” for example. And “Secrecy and Lies.”

Take more chances.  Have you spent enough time in the clubs?  You were born and raised in the States but had the fortitude to serve an orphanage in Katmandu, gain a European education and study music in Rome.   Surely you don’t just want us to only get all cozy.

Just keep going and don’t get too comfortable.

To read more reviews, posts and columns from Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Jazz CD Review: Emy Tseng’s “Sonho”

Emy Tseng

 Sonho (Self Produced)

 By Brian Arsenault

If the reality of burgeoning world music can be encapsulated in a single individual, I submit in nomination Emy Tseng.  Taiwanese born, raised in the American Midwest, Ivy League educated (she appears to have overcome it) singing Brazilian jazz, in Portuguese of course, with a couple of American jazz standards thrown in for good measure. (More about that later.)

Her debut album Sonho, Portuguese for Dream, is just that in places.  Dreamlike. There’s the very first tune, “Aquelas Coisas Todas” (“All Those Things”); Brazilian dreams: beaches, beauties, beverages, bistros, bossa nova.  Brazil has a myth, a legend, a romantic sense of passion and languor that Tseng acquired in Greenwich Village and honed in the Washington D.C. Brazilian music scene.

Emy Tseng

Don‘t sneer. The legend, the essence, is often sensed most strongly by those who know first  only the myth. But Emy Tseng is real. A remarkably clear voice. An adept student working hard at her craft. More than that, a gifted artist starting on a long path.

You don’t have to know the language to hear the allure in “Berimbau” with her sultry voice playing off Andy Connell’s soprano sax. (More about this guy later.) And if “Berimbau” flirts, Caetano Veloso’s “Coração Vagabundo” seduces. Again a dream: It’s deep dusk and a few dancers move smoothly on the floor. Andy Connell’s clarinet doesn’t accompany, it sings with her.

You see, I don’t know Portuguese. Like a lot of gringo Americans I have a passing acquaintance with English, some street slang, and little else. So I have to respond to the music and her voice as instrument.

Except in a few places.  “California Dreamin’” is a surprise – yes, the Mamas and Papas song — but it fits because she does it as melancholy and mournful and gives it a greater depth than a cold, broke hippy. Another dream.  Matvei Sigalov, an acoustic guitarist, plays wonderfully here and elsewhere on the album.

There’s her marvelous closing rendition of the classic jazz standard, “Close Your Eyes,” where she is accompanied only by David Jernigan’s wondrous acoustic bass. What’s created are spaces, silences between the notes of the two that would please even those discerning guys at ECM. Did I close my eyes? Yeah, for a moment, to hear those most comforting words  “I’ll be here by your side” in pure tones. Delicious.

On another standard that has become a jazz classic, “I Thought About You,” I thought about Emy doing a big piece of the Great American Songbook on a future album. Johnny Mercer songs, Cole Porter songs, Gershwin maybe.  It wouldn’t be better than her Brazilian jazz but, I think it might be very good indeed.

Still, she needn’t stray far from Brazil.  “Na Beira do Rio” shows how that distinctive Brazilian style of rhythm and melody can heighten emotional content with a singer who feels it. Sigalov again helps entrance us.

But the guy who really knocks me out on the album is the previously mentioned Andy Connell, who puts in two distinctive performances on clarinet and two more on soprano sax.

The clarinet is such a terrific instrument to listen to, but it’s often pushed aside, it seems, by our obsession with brass.  I have it too.  It’s, well, it’s brassy, commanding attention. But the clarinet floats on high and rides the wind when played by a guy this good. Similarly, the soprano sax seems often neglected for its larger siblings but is equally evocative.

Tseng, in the best jazz tradition, lets Connell and the others be showcased strongly, often as equals on songs.

If you’re like me, you tend to like your music “from the street” and to be a little suspicious about too much of an academic music background for rock or jazz. Hell, Tseng’s academic credentials even include a degree in Math. Yet the mistrust of learning and over-reliance on “street cred” can be distinctly anti-intellectual. A formal quality education in music also has the potential to expand creativity, not diminish it.

Emy Tseng will prove that, I think.

To read more posts, columns and reviews by Brian Arsenault click HERE.  

Jazz with an Accent: New CDs from e.s.t., Tania Maria and Eddie Gomez, Alfredo Rodriguez, Diego Schissi, and Christian Escoude

By Fernando Gonzalez

The music business might be not much of a business these days, but the quantity, variety and quality of the music being released is quite astonishing. No, not every recording is great or even merely necessary. Few would argue against democratizing the production and delivery process in music – but on the other hand, not everybody who can make a recording should. That said, trying to stay up to date with worthy new releases has become a frustrating proposition. Rather than “Jazz with an Accent” these notes might soon be titled “Running after the Bus.”

Here are some notable new releases.

 e.s.t.

301 (ACT)

Just about as it was gaining recognition as one of the most promising groups in 21^st century jazz the Esbjorn Svensson Trio, or e.s.t., came to a brutally abrupt, tragic end when its pianist and leader died in a scuba diving accident in June, 2008.  The sound of the trio, which included drummer Magnus Öström and bassist Dan Berglund, was an intriguing mix. It could play as cooly lyrical jazz one moment, informed by European classical music and Nordic sensibilities, and blow up as drum’n’bass, with bits of noise and electronics and a ferocious rock energy the next.

Culled from the material developed in two days of jamming in a studio in Sydney, Australia, in 2007 in the off days of an Asia and Australia tour, 301 plays as a terrific summation of the group’s power and music. It is actually the second posthumous recording from those sessions. According to the promotional information, Svensson had edited the material from those sessions down to two albums. Only one was released — Leucocyte (ACT 2008). Edited by Öström, Berglund and the band’s regular sound engineer Ake Linton, 301 (the name refers to Sydney’s Studio 301 where it was recorded) shows a mature, confident group working as a unit, listening hard, paying attention to dynamics and generally pushing and chasing each other down unexpected rabbit holes.  It’s tempting, But pointless, to hear 301 and wonder what might have been. What it is, is remarkable.

* * * * * *

Tania Maria with Eddie Gomez

Tempo (Naïve)

France-based Brazilian pianist and vocalist Tania Maria’s first album of new music in nearly six years is a surprising, small pleasure. A capable pianist who also was once nominated for a Grammy as a jazz vocalist (at one point in time her label promoted her as sounding  “sometimes” like a “Brazilian Aretha Franklin”), Tania Maria gained an international following as a fiery, high-energy performer. But in Tempo, a duet recording featuring bassist Eddie Gomez, her approach, while still full of verve, is pared down to essentials — and made better for it.

Tania Maria’s originals are all instrumentals, none particularly memorable but all well constructed. She draws from Brazilian music, blues and jazz and frames the mix with a pop sensibility.  She sings here, very effectively, in both Italian (“Estate,” an Italian pop hit since turned standard by artists as disparate as Joao Gilberto and Shirley Horn), and Portuguese (“Sentado A Beira Do Camino,” “A Chuva Caiu,” and “Bronzes e Cristais”).

Gomez is an invaluable partner throughout, laying down a solid foundation with a percussive edge, smartly letting the music breathe but also forceful and active when needed. And, no news here, Gomez is an effective soloist,  including  a beautifully bowed performance in Tania Maria’s “Senso Unico.”

* * * * * *

 In short …

 Alfredo Rodriguez: Sounds of Space (Mack Avenue)

The debut recording of LA-based Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez plays like a sampler  –  all original pieces in a variety of styles, both traditional and his own, showcasing his technical breadth and depth.  Consider the opening “Qbafrica,” with its baroque Hermeto Pascoal references, leading into the elegant bolero “Sueño de Paseo,” and back up again to the burner “Silence.” Rodriguez is featured here leading two ensembles, one from Cuba, the other one based on the United States.

 Diego Schissi Quinteto: Tongos (Sunnyside)

Argentine pianist and composer calls his music “not tango, but close.” In fact, his post-Piazzolla tango features a similar instrumentation to that of the maestro’s (violin, guitar, bandoneón, bass and piano) and shares references (Bartok and Stravinsky as well as tango tradition) before going its own way. Not much improvisation here, but smart writing, beautifully shaded, and paced playing and a path to the tango for the 21^st century – or something close to it.

Christian Escoudé Plays Brassens (Sunnyside)

How much you may enjoy this release by French guitarist Christian Escoudé does not depends on how much you know about the great poet and songwriter George Brassens. Originally mostly voice-and-guitar songs, Escoudé treats them as standards and arranges them for various sextets. If you know these songs, you´ll appreciate the humor and affection in Escoudé´s versions. But even if you don´t, the pleasures in these well-constructed songs and the unhurried swing and modestly displayed virtuosity of Escoudé and his ensemble (which includes guitarist Birelli Lagrene on one track) need no translation. A delight.

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To read more posts from Fernando Gonzalez and “Jazz With An Accent” click HERE.

CD Reviews: Music of the Holiday Season

By Faith Frenz

Carole King

A Holiday Carole (Hear Music)

A delightful gift for the season, with Carole’s bubbly personality breathing new life into some old chestnuts — “Sleigh Ride” and “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” among them. A Holiday Carole was recorded in Los Angeles as a collaboration with family and friends and is enhanced with the personal touch of a collection of family pictures on the insert.  In an additional family connection, the album was produced by her daughter, Louise Goffin, who also contributed four original songs. The singing is vintage 70′s Carole King. Even though she plays the piano on only three numbers — “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, and “New Year’s Day” — her delightful exuberance is something we can always welcome a little more of in these troubled days.

Elf: The Broadway Musical

Original Broadway Cast Recording (Ghostlight Records)

Based on the New Line Cinema film Elf, the Broadway musical of the same title is faithful to the sweet and sentimental story of a human baby who is raised by Santa’s elves.  Until he grows to maturity and gets Santa’s permission to return home to New York to find his parents and teach them the true meaning of Christmas.

Although not presently running on Broadway, the album (just released) could be considered a return engagement for the original cast. With song titles like “Sparklejollytwinklejingley,” “Nobody Cares About Santa Claus,” “There is a Santa Claus,” and “Never Fall in Love with an Elf,” I think one can get the general idea of the book and the score. All bounce and cheer, if you are a Broadway Musical fan, this album is worth adding to your collection. The insert contains all the credits and lyrics for the entire libretto. And it also has tons of holiday cheer.

Tony Bennett

The Classic Christmas Album (RPM Records/Columbia Legacy)

A 40-year legacy of Christmas songs produced over the years in a catalog of five holiday albums is the source of all but one of the 18 chestnuts selected for this 2011 Classic Christmas Album. You can either purchase this budget priced album if you want to hear a whole lot of Tony Bennett, or go online to purchase indiviual MP3s of just your favs, of which there are no doubt quite a few.

As you can imagine, 40 years will provide a broad spectrum of style and orchestration, with something for everyone, from big swing orchestra to small jazz combo. The selections are balanced between  traditional Christmas Carols such as “The First Noel” and sentimental holiday classics like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”.  This is really an album which has something for everyone, especially Tony Bennett fans.

Various Artists

Putumayo Presents A Celtic Christmas (Putumayo)

A warm and inspiring collection of Christmas themed music derived from traditional solstice carols with Celtic roots (Scotch, Irish, English and French) that are hundreds of years old, performed with accordians, harps, pennywhistles and fiddles. The music creates an ambiance of nostalgic Christmas carollng in a cold winter’s night — a community setting to put aside ones troubles and rejoice in the season of celebration.

The pagan roots of the season show through as well,  especially in songs such as Noel Nouvelet, which is a 15th Century French New Year’s carol. The album’s pamphlet, rich with historical background for this most engaging collection of  winter holiday music, helps to enhance the listening experience, with its refreshing orchestrations and comfortable balance of diverse vocals. Especially notable are the Dougie MacLean rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” and a Gaelic translation of “White Christmas.” A refreshing change from the old chestnuts and highly recommended for folks (like me) who program their winter holidays with music 24/7.

CD Reviews: Machito, Bobby Sanabria, Arturo O’Farrill, Pedro Giraudo

Big Band with a Latin Accent,Then & Now.

By Fernando Gonzalez

El Padrino (Fania/Codigo)

Machito

The big band occupies a special place in Latin Jazz history. For starters, in the 1940s and ‘50s, the orchestras led by Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and Machito, the real life Mambo Kings, not only defined a certain sound, putting jazz instrumentation, harmonies and improvisation to true Afro-Caribbean grooves, but also seemed to bring out the whole country to the dance floor.

A lot has happened since.

Those classic bands remain the high water mark in Afro-Caribbean jazz.  But the term Latin Jazz has regained its true meaning,  encompassing a broader, truly Pan American sound.

The two-disc compilation El Padrino  revisits the work of Frank “Machito” Grillo and his exceptional band The Afro-Cubans. Anchored by friend and his brother-in-law,  saxophonist Mario Bauzá, an essential figure in the development of Latin Jazz, Machito and His Afro-Cuban blended sophisticated jazz arrangements and improvisations over authentic Afro-Cuban rhythms.  The results were explosive.

Collections such as El Padrino are samplers, conditioned by available recordings, licensing issues, and the curator´s taste. That said, the music here is a treat.  Fittingly, the set opens with “Tanga,” a Bauzá composition considered the first Latin jazz piece,  and goes from there. It includes fine examples of the band in full flight (check “Wild Jungle,” “Cannonology,” featuring Cannonball Adderley, Ray Santos’ Latinized blues “Azulito,” or “Mambo a la Savoy,” for starters).  And it also showcases the woefully underrated singer Graciela Pérez — Machito´s foster sister, better known simply as Graciela. Recognized as an interpreter of ballads, her work on El Padrino offers a good argument for reconsidering her standing as a big band singer, contributing a sense of swing and a certain cheeky sassiness (check “Si Si No No”) to the music. The collection also includes tracks with Marcelino Guerra (“El Guardia con El Tolete”), and flutist Herbie Mann (“Brazilian Soft Shoe,” “Love Chant”).

Cooly riding this beast of a band was Machito, front man, maraquero (maracas player) extraordinaire, and a singer with an expressive, caramel toned voice and impeccable sense of time.  Decades after it was a originally played and recorded, Machito’s music has lost none of its power and grace.

Tito Puente Masterworks Live (Jazzheads)

Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, Conducted by Bobby Sanabria

Timbalero, composer, and bandleader Tito Puente once built an explosive orchestra that became one of the friendly competitors of Machito’s band at the now legendary Palladium Ballroom on West 53^rd St. and Broadway.  Leading a big band of students at the Manhattan School of Music, drummer, percussionist and educator Bobby Sanabria celebrates Puente’s work in Tito Puente’s Masterworks Live.

The repertoire nods to Afro-Cuban religious music (“Elegua Changó”),  some classics (“Picadillo,” “Ran Kan Kan,” “Cuban Nightmare,” but not “Oye Como Va”),  and a couple of jazz standards (Oscar Pettiford’s “Bohemia After Dark,” “Autumn Leaves”).

While most of the arrangements in this recording are reconstructed from Puente’s original versions, as Sanabria explicitly points out in the album notes, “the performances here are not nostalgic.”  Instead, he and his charges update Puente’s sound while going for the precision and excitement of his bands. That’s not only a worthy tribute to the past, but also a celebration of the future of this music.

40 Acres and a Burro (Zoho)

Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra

Pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill has held together the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra for more than three years after losing its home base at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Better yet, O’Farrill and the orchestra have continued to push and grow, exploring beyond Afro Cuban music while consistently producing rich, valuable work.

In 40 Acres and a Burro, O’Farrill smartly explores rumba (the explosive “Rumba Urbana”) and Puerto Rican bomba (in the knotty, angular “A Wise Latina,” written to honor Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor).  He looks into Brazilian choro (Pixinguinha’s “Um a Zero” in a fine arrangement by Nailor Proveta — leader of the excellent Banda Mantiqueira – featuring superb playing by Paquito D’Rivera on clarinet).  There’s also Afro-Peruvian festejo (“El Sur”), modern tango (Astor Piazzolla’s “Tanguango”, turned here into a tart, urgent New Yorker tango),  an Afro-Latin-Celtic piece (“She Moves Through The Fair”) and a couple of classics, the bolero “Almendra” and  Dizzy’s “A Night In Tunisia.”

Not surprisingly, O’Farrill and the band sound at once precise and loose-fitting. There is brilliant ensemble playing and soloing and, most engaging, they also sound fearless. They can even transmute anger and pointed  social commentary into sly fun — just check the title track.

Córdoba (Zoho)

Pedro Giraudo Jazz Orchestra

While O’Farrill’s adventurous big band Latin Jazz takes Afro-Caribbean rhythms as a point of departure, New York based bassist and composer Pedro Giraudo anchors his music on traditional styles of his native Argentina.  Córdoba — titled after the Mediterranean city, and a province in Argentina where Giraudo was born — is his  fifth album as a leader and shows an increasingly sure hand both in writing and arranging.

The approach here is orchestral, not merely tutti intros plus solos over the rhythm section and splashes of big band writing.  Rather, Giraudo uses sectional call and response, contrapuntal textures, tempo changes, and a muscular use of the rhythm section. There’s a reason why his press material speak of Charles Mingus, Carla Bley, and Duke Ellington as influences.

As foundation, Giraudo uses traditional rural Argentine styles — the slow, blues-like baguala,  the zamba,  and the chacarera. This is big band Latin Jazz with a different, fresh  accent.

World Music CD Review: Las Rubias Del Norte “Ziguala”

Las Rubias Del Norte

Ziguala (Barbès Records)

By Devon Wendell

Las Rubias Del Norte’s knack for putting a Latin spin on world music with modernity and originality comes through loud and clear on their third and latest album Ziguala.  The band’s two creative forces – Emily Hurst and Allyssa Lamb – are the “Two Blondes From the North” in the translation of the name, which is also a take-off on the Mexican Norteño band, “Los Tigres Del Norte.”

Hurst and Lamb have a unique sense of vocal harmony and use unusual instruments generally associated with ‘60′s kitschy psychedelic rock – the glockenspiel and Farfisa organ – which set them apart from other world music bands.  This blend of voice and offbeat instrumentals is evident on the album’s opening track, a haunting minor key version of Jose Luis Perales’s “Porque Te Vas.” Hurst uses the Farfisa organ for color and texture, adding a marimba style that rides subtly atop Timothy Quigley’s steady shakers.

Surprisingly enough, it’s the album’s traditional Latin numbers that are the least interesting and often redundant, while the group’s revamping of material from other cultures is much more impressive. One example of this is a fascinating visit to “Bollywood” on the band’s version of “Mana Janab Ne Pukara Nahim,” written by well known Indian composers, S.D. Burman, and Majrooh Sultanpuri. This Tito Puente-esque rendition has a strictly Latin dance feel, with wonderfully mournful guitar by Giancarlo Vulcano.

The title track, written by Greek singer and bouzouki wiz Manolis Hiotis, is a brilliant departure from the original, with an upbeat Mariachi flavor. Lamb delivers some delightfully odd dissonant piano playing that blends with Vulcano’s distorted rhythm guitar arpeggios.

The strongest vocal performances on the album are on a dark, ambient reading of Kurt Weill’s “J’Attends Un Navire,” with soft lush string arrangements and stark vocal harmonies by Hurts, Lamb, and Olivier Conan.  The Neapolitan “Scalatinella” demonstrates the rhythm section’s tastefully original backing, with exceptional percussion by Quigley and Greg Stare, and bluesy electric guitar leads by Vulcano.

“Seguedille” is an album standout. Lamb and Hurst’s layered ethereal chanting is mimicked by Vulcano, who alternates between flamenco nylon acoustic and Gabor Szabo-style electric jazz fills.  Amani Lara’s “Sola” has a South of the Border/country ambiance and includes steel guitar and B3 organ; the song makes for a fun experiment and is a perfect backdrop for Lamb and Hurst’s soprano vocal stylings.

The album’s weak point is that it goes on longer than it needs to, with material such as “El Alcaravan” and “Cruzando El Mar” seeming forced and unnecessary. The album’s outer explorations into other territories would have sufficed without the presence of overly used traditional Latin material.

Aside from those fillers, Las Rubias Del Norte’s take-no-prisoners approach to melding Latin music with other styles makes much of  Ziguala into an intriguing and satisfying musical adventure.

World Music CD: Lawson Rollins “Espirito”

Lawson Rollins

Espirito (Infinita)

By Devon Wendell

Guitarist Lawson Rollins’ music has been spanning the globe and exploring many diverse musical traditions, tones, and textures for more than a decade.  (His remarkable, fast fingered “Fire Cadenza” has already received over 2 ½ million YouTube views.)

On this latest album, Rollins continues to apply his prodigious technique to a far-reaching collection of material.  Espirito reaches beyond the familiar areas of Latin jazz with some adventurous compositions and stirring solos. On “Ramba del Sol” there are daring improvisational exchanges between Lawson, bassist Randy Tico, percussionist Dave Bryant, and violinist Charlie Bisharat. The horns (Jeff Elliot, trumpet and Justin Claveria, tenor sax) are most impressive on “Havana Heat,” featuring Elliot’s subtle yet sleek and funky horn arrangements.  Rollins’s attack on this number dives right into the soul of the blues with fast minor pentatonic trills and slow string bends.

On “Blue Mountain Bolero,” Rollins infuses his masterful Segovia-like acoustic guitar runs with rock-inspired wah-wah leads by one of the album’s producers, Shahin Shahida.  Equally impressive: Joseph Ehtesham-zedeh’s spaghetti Western slide guitar, eerie keyboard work by the album’s other producer, Dominic Camardella, and the frenetic violin playing of Bisharat.

The ambient vocals delivered by Flora Purin and Diana Booker sound as if they were pushed too far back in the mix on “Moonlight Samba,” “Return To Rio,” and the title track, in a manner that distracts from the outstanding instrumental performances. The only similar number to pull it off effectively is the African inspired Cape Town Sky, in which guitarist Shahida adds colorful vocal flourishes that stay tastefully in context with the song’s theme.

Rollins and company take the listener on a continuous geographical tour of Cuba, Africa, and even the South of France on Cafe La Martinique. The sultry tango swing and brilliant interplay between Richard Hardy on clarinet and flute, Bisharat’s violin, and the psychedelic minor key electric guitar shadings by Shahida make this a standout track.

Rollins’s sense of dynamics and harmony are at the forefront of each track and mixed so that it feels as though all the other band members are dancing around his swift arpeggios, sweet motifs, and layered harmonies.  While some tracks are more successful than others, the album is pieced together with purpose and love of music from all corners of the globe.

CD Review: “Cantora” Mercedes Sosa

y Fernando Gonzalez

It’s perhaps fitting that Cantora, simply woman singer in Spanish, turns out to be the last recording by Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa, who died of kidney and liver failure, Sunday, October 4, at a clinic in Buenos Aires. She was 74.

Cantora is a disc of collaborations with a stellar roster of  Latin music singer and songwriters, some young enough to be her grandsons and granddaughters, representing a broad musical spectrum including conventional pop and rock, but also alterna-folk and classic tango.  The set up could suggest that Cantora is just another gimmicky “concept” disc, trading on brand names, searching for that mythical wider audience. If it’s not, it’s because, well, it rings musically true.

For starters, Sosa sings Sosa. Her voice might not be as strong, but it remains an admirable instrument, rich, powerful but also malleable, still stunningly expressive. Her vibrato has grown wider with age but she uses it with restrain. There is almost an audible affection and admiration in the work of her collaborators (some of whom were not even in the same studio with her) and it’s all warm and fuzzy, but the arrangement is clear enough — it’s their move. It’s up to them to stay true to their own style and still keep up and blend with Sosa – and to their credit, most do.

Also, musically Cantora succeeds because it stays true to Sosa and coherently close to folk music throughout. And while it includes songs in traditional folk styles, it also acknowledges other, newer, popular genres such as rap and cumbia villera, a take on cumbia that emerged in the shantytowns of Buenos Aires, as if suggesting that this might be today’s folk music.  It´s a subtle but powerful statement — and one that fits Sosa´s character and extraordinary career.

Sosa was born in poverty, her father a day laborer, her mother a washer woman, in Tucumán, a province in northwest Argentina, on July 9, 1935. At 15, she won an amateur-hour contest sponsored by a local radio with a two month contract for appearances as its grand prize.   It turned out to be the start of her career.

By the late 50s she had moved on from traditional folk  and embraced the Movimiento del Nuevo Cancionero, a fledging movement with a new approach to folk music that updated the standard folk lyrics to sing about the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. This, naturally, led her in time to champion the Nueva Canción (New Song), a movement in Latin America in the 60s that blended traditional rhythms and lyrics addressing social and political concerns. This became a deadly serious business in Latin America in the 70s, as ruthless military dictatorships took power. Sosa was detained and body searched on stage at a concert in 1979. Many in the audience were detained. In the following weeks, her concerts were cancelled after anonymous bomb threats were called in. And while there was no cause open against Sosa, her songs were banned on the radio and she was prohibited from performing.

Understandably feeling persecuted and unable to make a living, Sosa left in self imposed exile to France and Spain.

She returned to Argentina in 1982, just as the military dictatorship was beginning to disintegrate. (In fact, in retrospect, Sosa´s epochal 13-night comeback stand at the Opera Theatre in Buenos Aires, captured on the disc Mercedes Sosa en Argentina, was in itself a measure of the increasing weakness of the regime.)

Sosa had been an international artist, performing in the United States and Europe, since the 1960s, but in her condition as an exile she transcended her role as a folk singer and became a symbol of resistance and the struggle for human rights.  It was a heavy mantle that she carried effectively – while also making clear to whoever wanted to listen that she was an artist first.

“Sometimes, one is made to be a big mouth or some sort of Robin Hood and it’s not like that,” she once told me, in the 90s, with an edge of frustration in her voice. “I am a woman who sings, who tries to sing as well as possible with the best songs available. I was bestowed this role as big protester and it’s not like that at all. I’m just a thinking artist.”

And being a “thinking artist” for Sosa not only meant singing questioning lyrics, but also opening up her musical world.

Since her return to Argentina and for the past 20 years, rather than basking on the warm glow of her status and playing it safe musically, Sosa increasingly crossed over stylistic boundaries, taking a Pan-Ibero-American approach. She would still sing Argentine folk music and remain true to her Nuevo Cancionero roots, but also integrate music by Brazilian artists such as Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque; Spanish singer songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat and rocker Joaquin Sabina. And in Argentina, where the music communities long lived in parallel worlds that rarely acknowledged, much less addressed, each other, Sosa seemed to make a point of ignoring stylistic boundaries. She worked with neo-folk singers such as Leon Gieco (a Bob Dylan-like figure) but also recalcitrant rockers such as Charly Garcia, pop rockers such as Fito Páez and new tango stalwarts such as bandoneonist Rodolfo Mederos. And it wasn’t just big names but also up-and-coming songwriters, playing sort of fairy godmother by calling attention to their work, giving them, in a word, her blessing.

Which brings us back to Cantora, which includes collaborations with old friends such as Serrat,  García, Spinetta and Paez, but also Shakira, Gustavo Cerati, René Perez (Calle13), Lila Downs, Julieta Venegas and Franco De Vita, as well.  (This is, by the way,  an international edition of an original two-disc set released earlier this year in Argentina. Other artists from that collection who are not featured here include Pedro Aznar, Luis Salinas, Luciano Pereyra and Ruben Rada.)

Most of the songs were written by the guests, although there are also intriguing reprises. Some weak (Shakira over emotes her part in Silvio Rodriguez´s “La Maza”). More are exceptional such as the smart remaking of Victor Heredia´s “Canción Para un Niño en la Calle,” (Song for a street kid) by René Perez, who alternates his rapping with Sosa´s singing creating a truly touching counterpoint.

Nine, or exactly half, of the songs in the set feature strings arranged by long time Sosa’s pianist and musical director Popi Spatocco. And while the sound is lush and lustrous it also at times gets too precious, almost reverential and it covers the program with a certain melancholy. (Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury, even toned down from her usual high energy, hyperkinetic self to perform Chico Buarque’s “O Que Será,” comes as a welcome relief.)

Sosa sounds at ease with pop rockers Cerati, Garcia, Páez and Spinetta, but truly shines in her collaborations with Lila Downs (Heredia’s classic “Razón Para Vivir”) and Julieta Venegas (her own “Sabiéndose de los descalzos,” which could easily have been part of Sosa’s 70s repertoire). At the risk of reading too much into it, she sounds then as if passing the torch to a younger generation of  folk singers, also reinterpreting their tradition to make it of their time.

Open minded, respectful of the past but decidedly forward looking, Cantora is a worthy finale for an extraordinary career.

To read other reviews and commentary by Fernando Gonzalez clilck here.