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New world order--Featuring world music artists from 16 countries, GlobaFEST at Joe's Pub in New York City provides a passport to eclectic ethnic and cosmopolitan sounds rarely heard elsewhere
BY JAY LUSTIG
Star-Ledger Staff
It seems insufficient to call Beat The Donkey's recent appearance at First Night Montclair a concert.
This show, which took place in the Montclair High School auditorium, was an exercise in multi-media overload, with a psychedelic light show, a tap-dancing segment, and a playful interlude where band members pretended to use their tambourines as tennis rackets.
One musician dressed as a New Year's baby, wearing only a diaper and displaying a hand-written "2004" on his chest. Another donned Viking horns to sing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." Everyone danced.
The freewheeling, remarkably energetic show was held together by its beats. Leader Cyro Baptista, a master percussionist, and his nine supporting musicians, who stuck mostly to percussion instruments as well, generated wave after wave of rhythm. Baptista is a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil, though he has lived in Tenafly since 1990, and the band blended Brazilian beats with hip-hop, jazz, funk and countless other forms of music.
"In Brazil, they have a carnival -- a big celebration, maybe the biggest celebration in the world," says Baptista, 53, whose resume includes work with Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock, Yo-Yo Ma, Trey Anastasio and Sting. "I wanted to make something like that: have a lot of people play together.
"But also, percussion cannot exist without a dance -- it's like a hand in a glove. And also I like theater. So I think of Beat The Donkey as a mix of the musical experiences I have had throughout my life, plus the dance element, and a little bit of theater, too."
The band, which will perform at Saturday's GlobalFEST show at New York's Public Theater (see accompanying story), formed in 1997, and released a self-titled debut album in 2002. It was produced by avant-garde saxophonist and composer John Zorn, and released by Zorn's New York-based Tzadik label. The band will soon begin work on a followup.
The idea, all along, has been to find a ways for different percussion traditions to coexist.
In the band's lineup, "We have people from Japan, from Europe, from Brazil -- we call it the United Nations," says Baptista. "People think, in theory, that's very beautiful, but it's kind of hard, because each one has a different reaction for each situation. But we try to use the music as a funnel, for us to get together on the same page."
The band's name -- which is not intended to infuriate animal-rights activists -- is the English translation of the Portuguese phrase, "Pau Na Mula!"
"It's an expression in Brazil," says Baptista. "It means, 'Let's do it, let's go!' You need to beat the donkey in order for the donkey to move."
In Montclair, Baptista played everything from the traditional Brazilian berimbau (a single-stringed instrument, shaped like a bow) to the kind of washboard zydeco percussionists use, and a set of household pipes that he struck with rubber sandals. He and his bandmates also played drums of all shapes, sizes and cultural heritages.
"Every town that I go to, I ask, 'What is the percussion here?'," says Baptista, who backed artists like Simon and Hancock on world tours. "I bought so many instruments -- or people gave them to me -- that my house now looks like a percussion museum.
"Like, I went to Bali. It's an incredible place, and a paradise for percussionists, with the gamelans (percussion orchestras). I tried to learn the music, and the music is really hard. I think I need this lifetime, and the next one, and two more.
"Then I said, 'Man, I have the instruments, I'm going to compose Brazilian music for Balinese instruments.' That's where world music starts, for me. When you find out, 'Oh, we can play together.'"
Baptista's curiosity and openness has made him an unusually versatile session musician. His recording credits include albums by opera singer Kathleen Battle, traditional Irish group The Chieftains, jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, folk-oriented singer-songwriter Janis Ian and pop experimentalist Laurie Anderson.
"Everybody that I play with, I learn a lot," he says. "These people are like my school. Maybe when you are a doctor, you study, then you get to a point where you learn it. But a musician needs to be practicing all the time. It's a never-ending process."
Fado means fate in Portuguese, so it's fitting that when Mariza is asked how she began singing the melancholy Portuguese folk music known as fado, she responds, "I didn't have a choice."
Though born in Mozambique, Mariza, 30, moved to the tradition-drenched Lisbon neighborhood of Mouraria -- the birthplace of fado -- when she was very young. Her family bought a small restaurant where fado was often performed, and she began singing it herself by the time she was 5. Since she couldn't read yet, her father helped her remember song lyrics by drawing cartoons.
"I grew up listening to this music and feeling this music -- it's like breathing," says Mariza, who will perform with a three-piece combo at Saturday's GlobalFEST concert at New York's Public Theater (she has a prime, 10:40 p.m. slot). "I can try to sing other things, like jazz or soul or funk. But fado is me."
Mariza, who still lives in Lisbon (and whose full name is Mariza Nunes, though she uses only her first name professionally), has become a rising world-music star with her two albums, 2002's "Fado em Mim" and last year's "Fado Curvo." Both albums have an unquestionably authentic, traditional sound. But "Fado Curvo" strayed from the formula of the debut (which featured several songs associated with fado queen Amália Rodrigues, who died in 1999) by emphasizing original material, adapted from the work of Portuguese poets.
The album's title reflects Mariza's desire to put her own spin on the music.
"'Curvo' doesn't really mean 'curved,' it means 'not straight,'" she says. "Fado is not a straight line. Like passion, like all the feelings you have -- they are not straight lines. Like life, like your destiny.
"That's why I gave the album that name, because my fado is not straight. I have another vision and other feelings about fado."
Steeped in tradition but not totally tradition-bound, it's the kind of album that could help bring fado to a wider audience. (Mariza's striking look, combining close-cropped platinum-blonde hair with long, flowing dresses, helps her stand out from the crowd, too). But Mariza says she's not on any kind of mission.
"I don't think about what I can do, but about what pleasure (fado) is going to give me. I do it because I love it, and it gives me so much pleasure. It's a selfish thing."
Similarly, though GlobalFEST was conceived as a career-boosting event for world-music artists, she is not particularly concerned with what her GlobalFEST appearance will accomplish for her.
"I don't work like that in life: I don't expect anything. I'm just going to sing, and to feel everything.
"If something happens, it will be wonderful. If nothing happens, it will be wonderful at the same time. I'm going to travel to one of my favorite cities, I'm going to be with friends, and I'm going to have fun, because I'm going to sing." 01/09/04 >> go there
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