Recently we at LI Living found ourselves wandering through a Lisbon neighborhood around midnight. A Portuguese friend suggested a night cap and led us into a place where saffron light revealed beamed ceilings and arches. A few diners were finishing marathon meals as we sat at a table in the middle of the room, overlooked by a Portuguese tiled mural of a 16th century tavern scene.

Slim snifters of maroon port appear followed by three musicians with guitars who sit five feet away, one man holding the distinctive, twelve string Portuguese guitar. From the rear of the restaurant strides a petite, voluptuous beauty in her mid-20s, her hair taut in a bun, wearing a black-and white patterned dress, her neck covered in a long, silk shawl.

She stands, eyes sweeping the room. Sudden silence. She begins to sing from somewhere deep within herself.  Waiters line the back wall, staring, as she grips the fringed ends of the shawl in both fists at her waist. Through her soaring wail of a performance she moves the shawl to her shoulders, then her back and finally to her waist, all the while clutching the ends as she pivots to take in the whole room. Our friend whispers a translation as she sings: “God created your eyes, never duplicating such beauty, or anything more dangerous. Your love is wax. The love which burned, will melt.”

This is Fado, the national song of Portugal. To explain it might be to diminish it. Describing the Blues as a good person feeling bad only gets you so far, but that facile phrase can be applied to Fado. Fado is alchemy, inseparable components of guitar, emotion, choreography, and poetry.

Fado celebrates the Portuguese emotion of saudade. As the performer floats away in a swirl of black silk and more port is poured, our friend says saudade is practically impossible to translate, but then tries. “Melancholy? Homesickness even when you’re at home? The absence of someone you love? Sad but good?”

Words, sentences, phrases, conversation and literature are vital to the Portugese, the same as for other small nations who are fluent in the languages of larger and more powerful neighbors, and therefore especially revere their own tongue. Language is culture, identity, the speech of home, family, love.

Fado will be seducing Long Islanders this Friday night at The Tilles Center in the stunning persona of Mariza, Fado’s most famous name. Just as the Blues, rooted in the Mississippi Delta, went north and electric when it hit Chicago, so Mariza has stayed true to her art while adding traces of jazz and blues to the tradition. Born in 1973 in the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique, Mariza has performed all over the world from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House.

Listen to her weave the rhythms of her native Africa into the music. Her fresh take on the old art, plus her dedication to the passion of Fado, is what makes her a star.

For more information on the show, call The Tilles Center at  (516) 299-3100. Bring your ears and your hearts Friday night. Saudade will be provided.

-- Ambrose Clancy