|
|
 |
Mournful music, joyful life of Cape Verde icon
|
| Click Here to go back. |
San Jose Mercury News, Mournful music, joyful life of Cape Verde icon >>
-by Jim Harrington
The Cape Verdean music known as morna can be likened to many styles, including Brazilian modinha and Portuguese fado, but its closest cousin may well be the blues.
It's a mournful yet hopeful music, usually sung in Cape Verdean Creole, and its best-known voice belongs to Cesaria Evora.
The 65-year-old folk singer will make two Bay Area appearances this weekend, performing Saturday at San Francisco's Nob Hill Masonic Center as part ofthe SFJazz Spring Season and on Sunday at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga.
During a telephone interview, speaking through an interpreter, Evora talks about her latest CD, "Rogamar" (2006) (whose title translates loosely "Pray to the Sea") and her career.
"The sea is very important to the life of each Cape Verdean," Evora says from a tour stop in Portugal. "In each record, I always have a song about the sea. We cannot live without the sea."
Ironically, it may have been the sea that kept Evora from achieving international renown earlier in her career. The Cape Verde islands form a small cluster off the western coast of Africa. For generations, local musicians entertained fellow Cape Verdeans and occasional visitors but mostly remained isolated from the rest of the world.
Evora's music was mostly limited to the islands for much of her career. The vocalist, known as the original "barefoot diva" because she took the stage without shoes, began performing as a teenager. "I started when I was 16 years old with a group of young people, who were playing guitars," she says. "One of them, who was my boyfriend, said, 'Sing harder, because you have a nice voice.' I went on singing, and I never stopped."
Well, that's not exactly accurate. After quickly rising to stardom in the islands during the late '60s, she announced in the mid-'70s she was giving up the stage. She didn't perform for 10 years, and then in 1985 she gave music another try, leaving Cape Verde to record in Europe. The next breakthrough came in 1988, when Evora went to Paris to record "La Diva Aux Pieds Nus" ("The Barefoot Diva"), which achieved worldwide critical acclaim.
Her next album, 1992's "Miss Perfumado," won a Grammy nomination and pushed Evora to international stardom, with David Byrne, Bonnie Raitt and Ed Bradley among her fans.
Most famously. Madonna became enamored of the Cape Verdean singer Evora had been invited to perform at Madonna's 1997 birthday party at the Gianni Versace estate in Miami, but the murder of the fashion mogul put an end to the party planning.
The admiration was mutual. "I was a fan of Madonna when I was not known, in Cape Verde," Evora says. "I like to see Madonna onstage, you know?"
These days, Evora is more popular than ever. Her concerts draw capacity crowds, and she continues to win critical acclaim for her CDs. The joy she radiates from the cover photo of "Rogamar" doesn't carry a hint of the mournful aspect of her signature music.
She says, "My musicians have all these stories, and I am always laughing when I am with them. That's why they took this picture and put it in this album." She continues. Cape Verdeans "are joyful people. ... We are people from a poor land, but we are joyful."
..........................
Cesaria Evora, with Tcheka
Where: Nob Hill Masonic Center, UU California St, San Francisco
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Tickets: $25, $75
Also: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Mountain Winery 14831 Pierce Road, Saratoga, $39.50-$59.50, (408) 998-8497, www.ticketmaster.com
Folk singer Cesaria Evora performs the morna music of the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa.
06/07/07
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
