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Washington Post, Concert Preview >>
Although she's still hailed as the queen (or even "goddess") of morna, the lamentory ballad style of her native Cape Verde islands, Cesaria Evora just isn't all that bummed out these days. Like its immediate predecessors, the new "Rogamar" ("pray to the sea") is more jaunty than mournful, matching the singer's contralto to material that owes as much to Senegal's Afropop and Brazil's Tropicalia as to her homeland's version of the blues.
Tropicalia mainstay Caetano Veloso has dueted with Evora in the past, so it's no surprise that his longtime collaborator, Jacques Morelenbaum, arranged six of "Rogamar's" 15 songs, including the satiny title tune.
Equally compatible is Senegalese singer Ismael Lo, who joins Evora for the sprightly "Africa Nossa," a song that doesn't deplore the continent's history but looks forward to "peace and progress." Evora can still sound wistful, as when she sings on "Sao Tome Na Equador" about "a place of suffering." Yet even that song concludes that "joy can still come," a message that the album's breezy rhythms and buoyant melodies convey as well as any words. 06/11/07 >> go there
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