Trace, Her. Own. Fate. >>
There are many absolute truths in life, but the blues is the one Absolute Truth that has been manifested, felt, heard, testified, and sung by every man, woman and child on this planet.
In Portugal, fado is that Absolute Truth. Has been since black/white poets trapped in Lisbon's hellish Alfama district booglarized it back in the mid-19th century. Dig: Poetic versus about sorrow, grief, jealousy, and death + two melancholy/bittersweet guitaras + one singer heart'n soul vulnerable yet indomitably life-affirming enough to transmute cries of anguish into clear-eyed exaltation = nothin' but the blues.
Maria Severa was the first great fadista. Her plaintive voice and diva drama transcended fado from wretched ghetto cry to the rapturous siren call of the collective Portuguese soul. Three quarters of a century later, Amalia Rodrigues would reinvent fado's wheel. Maria Callas-Billie Holiday-Eartha Kitt combined, Amalia ruled for six decades. Four years after her death, only one member of the new fadista vanguard is a true original: Mariza.
Born in Mozambique, 29 years ago, to an Afro-Indian mother and a Portugues-German father, Mariza was raised in Mouraria, the oldest section of Alfama. By age five she was belting out Severa/Rodrigues tunes at the family restaurant's Sunday fado sessions. Five years later, Mariza was blowing up fado houses all over town. But when she reaced high-school, peer pressure caused a switch to singing with way "cooler" jazz, blues, and bossa nova bands.
But Mariza felt like a half-empty cup. "Three years ago, at the end of the night, I said 'I'm going to sing a fado," she smiled. "Everybody said'you sing fado? Oh, we don't beleive it!"
Everything about her album "Fado em mim" (Times Square/World Connection)-from Mariza's platinum finger-waved 'do and haute couture drapes to the non-traditional use of cello, pianao, bass, and African percussion to her indigo-tinged arias-was controversial. "I'm not very traditional," she shrugged. "I try to respect the basses and tradition of fado. But I feel in my heart that I could do different things. Fado has a 230-year-old history. If we don't do anything, it's going to become a museume music."
Two years later, Mariza has been crowned the new Queen of Fado by hardcore traditionalists and under-30 popsters at home and abroad. Her newest opus is "Fado Curvo." "The firstalbum was something I did for fun. The second album is really me. It's my vision, my point of view." 10/01/03
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