ANDREW GILBERT: JAZZ TALK

Tradition a guide for Mariza

By Andrew Gilbert

TIMES CORRESPONDENT

When Mariza Nunes was growing up in Lisbon in the 1980s, her friends couldn't understand why she was interested in fado. For them, Portugal's national music was a faded sound from the distant past made up of songs from their grandparents' generation.

But for Mariza, who performs and records under her first name, fado is vibrantly alive, and lots of people are starting to agree with her.

Her second album, last year's "Fado Curvo" (Times Square Records), has been a runaway hit in Portugal, and she has spent the past three years touring internationally, winning fans at music festivals across Europe and North America with her passionate renditions of songs about loss, pain and longing, fado's traditional themes.

"When I was a teenager, my friends would ask me what I did in my free time, and I'd tell them I sing fado and they'd say, 'What? But that is for old people!'" said Mariza, 30, who performs tonight at Oakland's Calvin Simmons Theatre as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival. "At that time, I never had the idea that we had other types of music. For me, having fado was like a brother or sister. It's my way of living, a second skin, a way of breathing."

Growing up in Lisbon's Mouraria neighborhood, a bastion of traditionalism, Mariza was weaned on fado. Her parents ran a restaurant that featured frequent fado performances, and she started singing at the age of 5, gaining the nickname "the Little Bird." While steeped in tradition, she is not beholden to it. For "Curvo," she collected poetry by contemporary Portuguese writers and had the pieces set to music.

Another way in which Mariza is subtly updating fado is by adjusting the roles of instruments. Fado singers are often accompanied by a Portuguese guitar that follows the melody, a classical guitar that carries the rhythm and a stand-up bass that provides the bottom. In Mariza's ensemble, Antonio Neto's classical guitar holds down the botton, Fernando Sousa's bass carries the rhythm and Luis Guerreiro's Portuguese guitar "gives answers to my voice," Mariza said, functioning much like a blues guitar.

With its blend of Portuguese folk poetry, Arabic cadences and African and Brazilian rhythms, fado, which means "fate" or "destiny," was an unintended harvest from Portugal's far-flung empire. When fado started taking shape in the mid-1800s on Lisbon's hardscrabble waterfront, Portugal had been in decline for centuries, and the music's themes often reflected the forlorn but defiant outlook of a people whose poverty forced many young men to emigrate.

Over the years, the music became a ritualized form of emotional release, and has thrived for generations in Lisbon's fado houses, nightclubs where people gather to hear vocalists perform the haunting songs, which have often been compared to the blues. For decades, the music was personified by the great fado diva Amalia Rodrigues, who died in 1999 at age 79. Mariza is the most charismatic singer among a movement of talented young fadistas, including Misia and Cristina Branco, who are revitalizing the tradition-bound art form.

In performance, Mariza is a captivating presence, with her close-cropped blond hair, swanlike neck and glorious Belle Epoque gowns. While fado singers traditionally stand motionless as they sing, Mariza stalks the stage looking like an apparition from another era. She credits two friends, a fashion designer and a hair stylist, for helping her create the dramatic look that initially shocked fado-house audiences. Now she and her music are embraced for capturing the emotional essence of fado with her rich, ache-filled voice and commanding stage presence.

"When you go to a very special occasion, you put on your best clothes and you go very fancy, but in your style; that's what I do," Mariza said. "When I go to the States, it's a very special occasion. I'm going to receive my friends and I'm going to sing, something I love. I'm not a very pretty woman, but I like to be pretty onstage, and I do it with my style."