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Songbirds of South America
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Newsday, Songbirds of South America >>
Songbirds of South America: These four singers, stars in their native lands — Brazil, Peru, Chile and Colombia — hope to win fans here
BY STEVE DOLLAR
Sisterhood is powerful. Which makes it an appealing strategy for promoting music that might otherwise have a more difficult time being heard. And, no, that doesn't allude to the one-two punch of Jessica and Ashlee Simpson.
Rather, there's an impressive array of female vocalists from disparate worlds of Latin American pop and traditional music who are winning fans among English-speaking audiences in the United States.
Sometimes the artists are critics' favorites, such as the Mexican singer-songwriter Lila Downs or Juana Molina, a TV star and comedian from Argentina who re-emerged as a songwriter after a stint on the Los Angeles coffeehouse circuit. Others benefit from the support of American-based labels and the patronage of established American artists. Ry Cooder's involvement with the vintage musicians in the "Buena Vista Social Club" led to a record deal for Cuban diva Omara Portuondo. David Byrne's Luaka Bop label helped Peruvian vocalist Susana Baca find an English-speaking audience.
The Peruvian diva
One of Baca's contemporaries, Eva Ayllón, is finally winning notice in the United States, though she began recording in the 1970s. Backed by the Times Square label, she performs tonight at Town Hall in Manhattan on her first major North American tour -- which has been selling out small theaters.
Ayllón is the most popular singer in Peru, important for performing the traditional music of black Peru, as distinct from Andean folk music. "Other great singers have left the country, and they lose the traditional feel," says Ayllón, via a translator, in a phone interview from San Francisco while on tour. Her music celebrates the sensual rhythms of Landó, with its strong African influence making it kind of like Peruvian blues. "This is the music they teach children at a young age. The music taxi drivers listen to, that housewives hear during the day."
Ayllón isn't alone. Three other singers from South America visit Long Island and Queens this weekend in concerts sponsored by the world music label Putumayo. The national package tour features Chile's Mariana Montalvo, Brazil's Belo Vellôso and Colombia's Totó la Momposina.
Born to sing
The Putumayo tour offers a welcome occasion for Vellôso to establish her own name here. As the niece of two giant figures in Brazilian music -- Caetano Veloso and Maria Bethânia -- she not only comes to music as a kind of birthright, she also has something to prove. But it is all second nature.
"Being able to see my uncle and aunt onstage, without any doubt, was very inspirational," she says with the help of a translator via e-mail from Philadelphia the day the U.S. tour was about to begin in nearby Wilmington, Del. "But today I am part of another generation. Pop music is a big influence, and I am a big fan of Madonna."
Born in Santo Amaro da Purificacao, in the northern region of Bahia, Vellôso was surrounded by music: "It is the birthplace of rhythms, with very original sounds," she says, reeling off the litany of Brazilian's polyrhythmic heritage, from the bossa nova to the samba to the influences of African and native cultures and of rock and roll -- which helped drive the revolutionary Tropicalismo movement her uncle led in the 1960s that shook up popular music in Brazil much as the Beatles and Bob Dylan were doing in America.
Traditional with the new
"I try to keep the tradition and roots of our music, but with a mix of new rhythms and sounds with vibration and originality," she says. "Traditional music from Bahia depicts popular stories, fables, homages to African deities, and seeks to increase unity between all the families.
"My intention is to bring new rhythms into my work, which already exist in Latin music. We can mix other rhythms to be strong as salsa and merengue."
Vellôso's tour-mates also fuse styles. La Momposina hails from Mompos Island in Colombia's Magdalena River, where indigenous Indian culture and the presence of runaway African slaves created a rich and complex tradition of rhythms. She draws on this in performances driven by brass and percussion.
Montalvo grew up in Chile but fled in 1974, the year following the assassination of Salvador Allende, relocating to France. Strongly influenced by Chilean folk songs -- and their politicized, contemporary form as nuevo canción -- Montalvo also incorporates elements of French boulevard music into her songs.
She uses distinctive instruments, such as the charango (a small guitar) and the cuatro (a guitar-like instrument of Puerto Rican origin that has five sets of double strings). An accordion weaves the cultures together, evoking tangos and cumbias and Parisian street life.
"It's important that I tell my story with different songs," says Montalvo, who spoke through a translator by phone from Philadelphia. Montalvo is featured on a new solo album "Piel de Aceituna" (skin of the olive) from World Village, as well as on the Putumayo compilation, "Women of Latin America." "But the story is the same story," she says. "It is the story of my soul."
WHEN & WHERE
Putumayo's Latinas: Women of Latin America, 8 Friday night at Hillwood Recital Hall, Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, 720 Northern Blvd., Brookville; $40; 516-299-3100 or www.tillescenter.org.
And 3 p.m. Sunday at Queensborough Performing Arts Center at Queensborough Community College, 222-05 56th Ave., Bayside; $29-$35; 718-631-6311 or www.qcc.cuny.edu/BoxOffice
Eva Ayllón. 8 Friday night at The Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., Manhattan; $25-$45; 212-840-2824. www.the-townhall-nyc.org 10/15/04 >> go there
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