October 30–November 6, 1997
critic pick
Cesaria Evora
Cesaria Evora
Cesaria Evora's husky and crackling voice travels effortlessly from the island of Cape Verde to the chair where you're sitting. She rumbles from a scream to a whisper with inflection that can be dauntingly masculine or teasingly feminine. Her talent for creating drama is comparable to Meryl Streep and her masks of sadness, hurt and joy never quite seem to come off.
Evora's ability to convey life's lesser lights with savage reality (dig the unforgiving "Quem bô ê (Who Are You?)" for a dose of grand female empowerment) is only matched by her matured singing skills. She's an esteemed global diva with a devoted following and a handful of gentle sea-to-shore classics under her belt. Her warm, mellifluous tones and lackadaisical phrasing is, at times, reminiscent of Sarah Vaughan toward the end of her career.
Until 1992 Evora lived in the town where she was born, Mindelo, on the Cape Verde island of Sao Vincente (near the coast of Senegal). The most prevalent style of music from that region is a Portuguese blues of sorts (known as "morna"), filled with a mournful, but loving and expressionistic Creole vision of life.
When she was "discovered" in 1992, she was a 52-year-old grandmother who had been married several times, smoked way too many cigarettes and often walked around barefoot. The heavy smoking, no-shoe policy turned into a "barefoot diva" stage routine later on.
Her songs merge well-written emotional sea stories, morna blues and her own vision of struggle and strength. On her eponymous world-jazz debut and her more recent, more European-parlor flavored Cabo Verde (both Nonesuch), she courses like a woman dancing with the world and its waters on her broad back. The sea paints many a picture for Evora. On "Mar é morada de sodade," the sea is the home of her nostalgia, lonely and fulfilled. But through the misty haze of tangoed and tangled accordions, strummed guitars and saxophone, Evora's voice is like a lighthouse beam.
Cesaria Evora, Thu., Oct. 30, 8 p.m., Keswick Theatre, Glenside, 572-7650.
