A Brazilian Singer Reveals Some American Roots

The New York Times, April 19, 2004
By JON PARELES

Caetano Veloso always brings a concept to his concerts, and
this week Carnegie Hall gave him a chance to think bigger,
booking a five-night Perspectives series, including two
Carnegie concerts of his own on Friday and Saturday nights,
adding David Byrne on Saturday. It wasn't enough nights for
Mr. Veloso's many facets.

Three acts he chose for Zankel Hall pointed up his socially
conscious side, represented by AfroReggae; his seductive,
samba-rooted side, with the singer Mart'nalia; and his
mystical Afro-Bahian side, with the singer Virginia
Rodrigues. An avant-garde poet from São Paulo, Augusto de
Campos, was originally booked for yesterday but canceled,
citing of health problems.

For Mr. Veloso's Carnegie Hall show on Friday night, the
subjects were language and his affection for songs from the
United States. Since the 1960's, when Mr. Veloso and a
handful of fellow songwriters revolutionized Brazilian pop,
everyone has been able to hear his gift for melody, his
tender voice and his daring, felicitous combinations of
styles.

But listeners who don't speak Portuguese rely on
translations to glimpse the poetic ways his lyrics juggle
romance and history, events and myths, philosophy and wit.
His worldwide impact has been limited because Portuguese
is, as Mr. Veloso said onstage Friday, "a ghetto language,"
compared with the reach of English or Spanish.

Mr. Veloso has just released an album of North American
songs in English, "A Foreign Sound" (Nonesuch), and his
concert on Friday teased at the cultural interplay of
Brazil and the United States. He started with a Noel Rosa
song, "Não Tem Traducao": "There's No Translation." Then he
sang his own "Baby," noting how English slang was
infiltrating Brazil, and kept its Brazilian lilt to segue
into Paul Anka's "Diana," from which his song quoted "baby,
baby, I love you."

Later he sang a new song, "Diferentemente" ("Differently"),
an easygoing samba that mentioned "Osama" and "Condoleezza"
and had the English line "When you look at me I don't know
who I am." The notion of outsiders' imagining one another
kept popping up. Mr. Veloso juxtaposed the map-hopping
Rodgers and Hart song "Manhattan" with his own "Manhatã,"
envisioning the island when Indians owned it. He followed
his "O Estrangeiro" ("The Foreigner") with "The Carioca," a
Brazilian fantasy from the Fred Astaire movie "Flying Down
to Rio."

The homages, twists and paradoxes were implicit, and Mr.
Veloso's elegantly understated band provided him with
everything from nonchalant bossa nova to a wah-wah guitar
imitating Brazilian drums. But for much of the concert Mr.
Veloso simply sang Tin Pan Alley ballads recast with
Brazilian rhythms. Sentimentality he would never accept in
his own songs didn't bother him in English, and for too
much of the concert he became another visiting crooner,
singing to the audience in a language it happily
understood. For that role he was overqualified.

Having paid his tribute, he devoted Saturday's concert to
camaraderie, splitting and sharing the two-hour set with
Mr. Byrne, "my favorite American artist." Side by side,
they were both songwriters with surreal imaginations, a
fondness for the exotic and the syncretic, a sense of humor
and a way of placing grand ambitions in colloquial terms.

Mr. Veloso performed with his cellist, Jacques Morelenbaum,
and Mauro Refosco on percussion; Mr. Byrne played duos with
Mr. Refosco. Once again Mr. Veloso followed "Manhattan"
with "Manhatã"; he also sang a Byrne song, "The
Revolution," and soon after Mr. Byrne revealed that it had
been built on the rhythm of "Manhatã." But most of Mr.
Veloso's set returned to his own songs, lightly plucked and
gorgeously sung in Portuguese: songs about love, beauty,
aesthetics and Brazilian places and traditions.

Directly after Mr. Veloso, Mr. Byrne seemed gawky; unlike
Mr. Veloso, he strained to hit high notes, and his guitar
playing is rooted in the stolid rock beat. But with Mr.
Refosco conjuring an entire band, Mr. Byrne's songs
revealed their own charms: wry romantic situations like
"She Only Sleeps" and "Everyone's in Love With You," tales
of transcendence like "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere,"
and "Life During Wartime," more chilling now than it was in
1979.

Different as they were, it was clear that Mr. Veloso and
Mr. Byrne understand each other, and they both enjoyed a
final juxtaposition: Mr. Veloso's "Terra," followed by Mr.
Byrne's "Heaven."

© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/arts/music/19VELO.html