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World Feast (globalFEST preview)
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New York Press, World Feast (globalFEST preview) >>
Crossing borders with roots revival, Afro- Portuguese ballads and more at globalFEST
-by Ernest Bartetdes
The globalFEST music showcase has packed the house for the past four years, so now the world music marathon moves to Webster Hail where 12 acts take over three separate stages. The event has become a pivotal event for many hybrid acts that blend various musical styles and, once again, provides a lineup of new and established artists.
Sara Tavares, the Portuguese singer/songwriter by way of Cape Verde, blends African sounds with pop, samba and jazz influences. Her diverse heritage reveals itself due to a voice that's soft but assured (just compare her delivery to that of fado singer Ana Moura, who duets with Tavares on "DeNua," on her latest disc, Balance). Tavares sings her original material both in Portuguese and Creole, which is "a badly spoken form of Portuguese," as Cape Verdean legend Cesaria Evora once told me.
One of the most appreciated live moments is the English, French, Portuguese and Creole-worded "One Love," which, in a rough translation, says "I know that you will understand me if I express myself with love's language/I know I will understand you if love comes from you/I know I will understand you if love comes."
"Everyone talks about love in their own way," Tavares explains, "And in the end, we all complete each other."
During this past year's SummerStage, Brazil's Lenine had less than a warm welcome, but the following night at Joe's Pub he showed his chops, delivering a tight set that included several songs that had originally become hits via Maria Rita, Gal Costa and others. The prolific songwriter is better recognized abroad than in Brazil, and is known to deliver a fiery, high-energy performance with his fine guitar technique and strong stage presence.
Ever since her collaboration on the film Frida, Lila Downs has seen her audience grow considerably, specially in Europe, where she plays to sold-out concert houses. Her latest disc, Entre Copa Y Copa (From Glass to Glass) is, as she says, "My idea of sitting in a bar and telling a stranger all your secrets; it's about bawling out, feeling that melancolia of times gone by."
Unlike Downs' previous works, this is essentially an acoustic album in which jumpier moments merely make cameo appearances. The songs are much closer to the rancheras and the nortena music that populate jukeboxes in the various Mexican cantinas in NYCs outer boroughs, despite the presence of various electronic instruments.
Be ready to stock up on a few energy drinks before you go since the evening also includes the Palestinian ouds of Le Trio Joubran, Cambodian-American psych rockers Dengue Fever, the gypsy jazz of Les Primitifs du Futur, Colombia's Lucia Pulido and Palenque and the Central American All-Stars Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective. Wake up, it's the sound of the globalized future.
Jan. 21, Webster Hall, 125 E. 11th St. (betw. 3rd & 4th Aves.), 212-353-1600; 7, $40.
01/17/07
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