Radio Planet 3
by Cliff Furnald

Beyond Fado: New Voices of Portugal

I have recently embarked upon a little virtual exploration of Portugal, due in great measure to a chance email I received from a new friend in Amadora. He sent me the remarkable Novas Vos Trago [Tradisom, reviewed in the last issue] collection, opened up a window on a number of wonderful performers, and spurred me on to my own further adventures.
Amélia Muge is a singer of great range and unique delivery, a voice that will, in time, be as highly rated as many of the Portuguese names that now have the title "the great" attached to them, like Amalia Rodrigues and, more recently, Dulce Pontes. This is embarrassing praise for a young singer, but I do not think it is misplaced. Muge sings with a deep and personal passion and a wise understanding of her own unique dynamic strengths and weaknesses, and she uses both to great effect. But above and beyond her skill as a vocalist is her range as a writer and interpreter. Born in Mo zambique and well traveled through out Europe, with experience on the concert stage and in the theater, she has acquired a world vision that is reflected in the music on her 1998 recording, Taco a Taco [Mercury – Portugal].

Taco a Taco is a recording with a deep sense of history, from the fado and folk of Portugal to the jazz of Ella Fitzgerald, yet it is defiantly contemporary, innovative, and world wise. In the tradition of the tropicalismo of Brazil, she pirates sounds from Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe to create her palette. She can take a sweet fado and add kora and clarinet; metallophones and strings echo African folk and European classical; harsh percussion and voice create an ambience that borders on the avant garde, yet is always centered on the crystalline vocal line; a lively cello and reed ensemble generates humor and breezy abandon. Amélia Muge is poised for international recognition, I think, and "taco a taco" ("little by little") she is creating a vocabulary for continental Portuguese that is in keeping with the innovators of Brazil in this last half century. This is a talent to watch.

Gaiteiros de Lisboa start with an interesting conceit, since there are traditionally no "bagpipers of Lisbon" save for themselves. This band is obsessed with the sound of the wind, from the human voice and ancient reeds and flutes, to modern saxophones and industrial-designed instruments of their own concoction. To this they add the drone of the sanfona (hurdy gurdy), local and African percussion, and a hunger for pure music, no matter where it takes them. Much of the music on Bocas do Inferno [Farol, Portugal] has roots in the vocal tradi tions of Portugal, with rich, thundering male voices carry ing the melodies, tambor rhythms making it dance, and a whoosh of bagpipes and reeds that give it both a medieval feel and an otherworldly confusion.

As with Muge, the Gaiteiros do not seek to be protectors of the tradition. They revel in the disassembling of old songs, the revitalization of the old ways (only logical, since the essence of the "old ways" was one of constant reinvention), and the expression of the personal above all else. They are as much pranksters as artists, looking to unnerve the listener with both visual and aural oddities, whether it's an instrument made of plumbing pipe and household junk or a herky-jerky rendition of Sousa's "Washington Post March" for trumpet, reeds, pipe organ, and kazoo. They can be ominous, offering a musical foreboding of bad times, and then, just as despair takes hold, they blast out a dance tune that would save the world. On the cusp of the century, they are finding new things to say without abandoning their homestead.

This is an excerpt from Dirty Linen #87