Weather Report

Weather Report

A Creative Storm
By DAVID CÁZARES
Miami | 07.28.09
My friend and colleague Eliseo Carona &mdash music writer and blogger extraordinaire &mdash has reminded me of Weather Report, the incredible band that was a defining influence on anyone who loved the jazz fusion of the 1970s as I did and still do, with apologies to the jazz purists among us.

The group led by pianist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter wasn’t just any band. It was an ensemble of stellar musicians creating inspired, original and delightful compositions. My favorite albums include Mysterious Traveler, Black Market, Heavy Weather (the one with the hit Birdland) and Mr. Gone. Who knows what they could have done if the technology of the day had matched their vision.

See Eliseo's post here. |♫|

Adriana Calcanhotto in concert

Sin remedio, el mar
By DAVID CÁZARES
Miami | 07.17.2009
Listening to music can be an exploration, a trip in which we discover new voices and sounds. Our best journeys bring us in touch with stellar talents we might not have noticed before, the kind of performers who build upon their musical heritage by creating new art.

Singer and songwriter Adriana Calcanhotto is one such artist, a performer who delivers sensitive lyricism with stellar musicianship in the best of Brazil’s musical tradition, much as singers Caetano Veloso and Marisa Monte have.

The fortunate in South Florida will have a chance to see Calcanhotto make her Florida debut on Saturday when she takes the stage at the Colony Theater in Miami Beach. The sold-out show follows her appearance last night at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where Calcanhotto who is featured in the film Palavra Encantada (The Enchanted Word), performed solo with her guitar after a screening.

Calcanhotto, 43, is largely unknown outside of Brazil, where for the last two decades, where she has been a star in Musica Popular Brazileira or MPB, recording several successful albums, composing songs for television and making soundtracks for documentaries. She also created a new character for an album of children’s music, Adriana Partimpim, which won a Latin Grammy for best children’s album. A second volume will be released late this year.

In concert, she will perform a varied repertoire that includes classic Brazilian tunes and songs from Mare, a 2008 recording and the second in a trilogy of releases with music dedicated to the sea. The album, which follows her 1998 CD Maritimo, was produced by Arto Lindsay and features Veloso’s son Moreno Veloso backing her on guitar and vocals.

Well versed in Brazilian culture, Calcanhotto infuses her albums with her country’s poetry and its music, from samba and pop music to tropicalia, the rich blend of rock and Brazilian influences created in the 1960s by Veloso and Gilberto Gil, a movement of new popular music that drew on theater and poetry.

Calcanhotto is among those building on that earlier movement. She rose to prominence in the 1980s with a poetic version of MPB, itself a reaction against a rock ‘n’ roll craze. Since then she has taken a cerebral approach to music, producing albums that are thoughtful yet playful, gentle yet melancholy.

Her latest album includes originals and numbers by Veloso and another acclaimed composer, Dorival Caymmi. On some songs she writes music for the lyrics of other composers; for others, she writes lyrics for their music. Her voice is airy and distant as it is on the title cut:

One more time
The sea comes
To give itself
A landscape,
From arid to a mirage
Monte makes a guest appearance on the album, singing background vocals on Porto Alegre (Nos Bracos de Calipso). On Sargazo Mar, composed by Caymmi, Calcanhotto is accompanied by Gil on guitar.

In Miami Beach, she will perform solo. But concert-goers will see a complete performer, one who writes melodies and meaningful songs that offer a refreshing take on MPB, said Gene de Sousa, development director for the Rhythm Foundation, which is sponsoring the concert.

«It’s good to see someone so original who is coming out with something as good as the 70s generation,» said de Souza, host of Café Brasil on WDNA 88.9 FM. «The whole genre was cemented by Caetano and later on by Marisa, but a lot of people have frozen their opinion of MPB and those artists. It’s evolved.» |♫|

PHOTO – Marcos Hermes

Concert review: Buika

Sultry and divine
By DAVID CÁZARES
Miami | 07.10.09
It takes a great voice to fill a concert hall with little or no accompaniment. It takes a tremendous heart to create art. Concha Buika has both.

The Spanish singer and songwriter mesmerized her audience at Miami’s Gusman Center on Thursday with powerful songs of love and desire, heartbreak and longing. Accompanied by Cuban pianist Ivan “Melon” Lewis, Buika shared her unique interpretations of Spanish copla and Mexican ranchera set to flamenco, Afro-Cuban music and jazz.

It was a pairing of two extraordinary performers. Buika, born to parents from Equatorial Guinea, grew up on the Spanish island of Mallorca and is well-versed in flamenco, African music, jazz and soul. Lewis, who now lives in Spain, embodies Cuba’s musical tradition of agility and superb foundation. Their one-hour set largely featured selections from the singer’s most recent albums, Mi Niña Lola, recorded in 2007, and Niña de Fuego, released last year.

Through her recordings are superb, the renditions Buika delivered on stage were more developed, as she improvised through them, infusing them with humor, expression and emotion.

In Buika, concert-goers encountered a magical performer who pours herself into her songs. With her husky voice, impeccable phrasing and dynamic range, she transforms songs into moving and heart-wrenching suites, going from a whisper to a shout and using all of the notes in between, bringing to mind jazz singers Sarah Vaughn and Betty Carter.

The intimate setting of the Gusman was perfect for Buika, who enjoys connecting with her audience and improvising throughout her repertoire. She arrived on stage in a yellow dress and began with Niña de Fuego and with each subsequent song became more engaged, singing with raw emotion.

For Buika, singing is a cathartic exercise in which she openly expresses the joys and pain of her life. She sings to unburden herself, to release energy from her body and confront demons &mdash at once vulnerable and saucy.

She is fearless on De mi Primavera, singing “I hope you go. Nothing matters to me.” You know she means it. On Tu Volveras, a song to a departed lover which she dedicated to Gloria Estefan, Buika is tender and hopeful.

At times Buika’s phrasing reflected the staccato rhythms of flamenco or the folksy sway of ranchera. At others she employed African melodies, or chose to scat or swing her way through a tune, as she did on Desde Que Te Conoci and Mi Niña Lola, incredible renditions in which her voice at times sounded like a saxophone or flute. With the masterfully refined playing of Lewis, whom she repeatedly photographed, she reached orchestral heights.

The genres Buika sings aren’t universally known. But she does not sing for the great masses. True to her African heritage, she sings for the tribe, the fortunate fans who can appreciate her fresh and magical take on regional classics.

For Buika, singing is the prize. |♫|

PHOTO – Luis Olazabal

Buika, in concert

Baring her soul
By DAVID CÁZARES
Miami | 07.09.09
Concha Buika refuses to hide behind a false veneer of personality. She needs no carefully crafted persona, media image or handlers.

Instead, the singer who has won a devoted following in Spain and beyond with a powerful blend of flamenco, jazz, African and Latin American music prefers to reveal all – from her emotional reflections on her life to a cover photo in which she appears without clothes.

“I’m not nude; it’s simply that I’m not dressed,” Buika says of the photo for her most recent album, Niña de Fuego, released last year. “Because I find that to accurately portray yourself on a CD or in a given moment to show part of your soul, there’s no need to dress. Clothes don’t exist for the soul. You have to be brave with music.”

Buika takes the stage Thursday at Miami’s Gusman Center, accompanied by Cuban pianist Ivan “Melón” Lewis, one of the stellar musicians featured on her recent album. The recording reunited Buika with producer Javier Limón, who worked with the singer on her 2007 release, Mi Niña Lola, a highly acclaimed recording that thrust her onto the world stage.

Limón’s masterful and sparing flamenco-jazz fusions are a perfect foundation for Buika, who uses her deep and raspy voice to deliver heart wrenching renditions of Spanish copla and Mexican ranchera music, genres that allow her to sing of the joy and pain in her life &mdash sometimes at the same time.

“I think that to love a person is to walk toward the person,” said Buika, 37. “Falling out of love is to walk toward oneself again. It’s hard, it’s painful, but it’s not bad. It’s beginning to regain your time, your wants, your things and your entire identity. I think that breakups are a good thing. It’s the same as falling in love. To fail in love is to succeed. A failure would be to stay with a person who isn’t for you.”

Buika likes to remind a listener that she speaks from experience. Several years ago, after she married the father of her son, she fell in love with a woman and arranged for the three of them to marry &mdash a short-lived union she referred to on her previous album in Jodida Pero Contenta (Screwed But Happy).

“The title says it all,” Buika says. “I’m screwed because I feel bad but I’m happy because I’ve been able to push away something that harmed me. To recognize that something has harmed you is the first step towards overcoming it, by talking.”

The song occurred to her before the breakup. “Curiously the timelines are very allegorical. I wrote Jodida Pero Contenta without knowing things weren’t right. The song simply occurred to me. I thought, ‘damn what a cool song’ and I wrote it. And what you don’t know is you’re writing about something that’s happening. You know?”

A black singer might seem an unlikely champion of Spanish and Mexican torch songs, but Buika has an affinity for them. Born Maria Concepción Balboa Buika, she grew up playing guitar, piano and bass on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Her parents came to Spain as political exiles from Equatorial Guinea.

“We were practically the only African family that lived on the whole island. Of course I felt different everywhere,” she recalls. “I was the only black person around, always the only black person in class, the only black in the disco, the only black in the store, the only black in just about any place. And that was a very strange feeling. You get used to it but you never feel comfortable.”

As a child, she immersed herself in the culture of gypsy families who settled in the capital city of Palma de Mallorca and embraced flamenco. But her vocal style is inherently African. So it was only fitting that she began performing as a blues singer for a Mallorca hotel. She also explored jazz and soul music and worked as a Tina Turner impersonator in Las Vegas.

Concerts in Mexico introduced her to famed songstress Chavela Vargas, a singer she idolizes. Buika’s latest CD includes Mienteme Bien, a song she wrote after Vargas did not invite her to share the stage in Madrid. On stage, she sings it to solo piano. But Buika hasn’t lost her love for Vargas and plans to release a tribute to the Mexican singer. El Ultimo Trago, recorded in Cuba’s Abdala studios with pianist Jesus “Chucho” Valdes and his trio, will be released in September.

The other Cuban pianist in her life is Lewis, a masterful musician who plays Afro-Cuban rhythms, the blues, jazz and the graceful tones of the black church for Buika to embellish upon. Their appearance in Miami follows a show that promoters cancelled last September after they had difficulty obtaining a visa for Lewis to enter the United States, even though he now lives in Spain, problems that perplexed Buika.

“That just doesn’t seem right to me. He has a Spanish passport but everything stopped because it said he was born in Cuba. A man who only wants to play the piano. We had to cancel a show at a full house because they wouldn’t allow us to work. And then here we had to stop a tour because we couldn’t travel. I think this man has never seen a policeman in his life. I don’t understand any of it.”

But what she does understand is the stage, particularly those small settings in which she can see her audience while delivering soulful and earthy renditions of new compositions and old classics. She defies categories, choosing instead to invite listeners to interpret her art.

“Music is a container that comes to us empty,” she says. “The person that fills it is you.” |♫|

When: 8 p.m. Thursday
Where: Gusman Theater, 174 E. Flagler Street, Miami
Tickets: $27-$52 are available through Ticketmaster.com, and 800-745-3000. Tickets also are available through the center’s box office, 305-372-0925. Rhythm Foundation members can call 305-672-5202.

PHOTO – Alvaro Villarubia