REVIEWS The Americas Maria Bethânia interestingly reckless, his attempt to ‘Yesterday’ to ‘Penny Lane’ are transformed – and the documentary film that lends this Amor Festa Devoção deconstruct Gardél’s ‘El Día que me Quieras’ by London-based Santiago String Quartet package its title. Director Leon Gast went Biscoito Fino is a failure. The transmogrification works and the Cuban guitar virtuoso Ahmed on to make When We Were Kings, the Budget Price (2 CDs, 86 mins) with the first because it’s not a tango at all, Dickinson Cárdenas into lush homages to acclaimed account of Mohammed Ali’s !!! but a pop ballad (about the iconic tango the likes of Bartók and Stravinsky. ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ with George Great performance, uneven singer Roberto Goyeneche), made popular Indeed, it was these last two maestros Foreman. This film, built around the album 15 years ago by Adriana Varela. The second who inspired Brouwer’s 1957 work ‘Quintet hullabaloo at the Cheetah and intercut with Maria Bethânia is sounds like El Cigala means it, at least, and for Guitar and String Quartet’, which is scenes of daily life in El Barrio, is surely its most famous outside may have had a few tango-style bad nights. also here – its Afro Cuban rhythms and equal and worth the cover charge alone. Brazil as Caetano The third is a cheesy blob of a song; the melodies framed by the classical sonata Anyone who has ever heard the All- Veloso’s sister. But Muppets couldn’t craft a more daft tango form and freshened and brightened Stars’ much-anthologised ‘Quitate Tú’, within Brazil she is hybrid. Stylish support from tango guitarist by the young artists involved. Grammy- one of the four long jams that comprise as big a star in her Juanjo Domínguez, bandoneón legend nominated Uruguayan composer Volume 1, will appreciate how the own right. Like her brother, she emerged Néstor Marconi and well-travelled violinist Miguel del Aguila is represented by the vociferous audience helped to cook things onto the musical scene as one of the novos Pablo Agri can’t rescue the songs, and the quirky, playful ‘Presto II’, a Latin dance up to boiling point. ‘Ponte Duro’ on baianos, who made music together in cameo from Argentinian pop singer Andrés piece flecked with elements of 20s jazz Volume 2 goes right off the scale. Once Salvador in the mid-60s, and who included Calamaro doesn’t help. When El Cigala goes and boasting the sort of irregular time you’ve witnessed on film the human in their number Tom Zé, Gilberto Gil and on to have a crack at a Kurt Weill number, signatures and unusual playing techniques cauldron that night, the experience Gal Costa. Those three discovered drugs ‘Youkali’ (with the strings ripped off from that would floor lesser musicians than the of listening to the soundtrack becomes and electric guitars and invented the ‘Libertango’), and then wraps up the album five talents involved here. There’s also the more intimate and still more intense. The Brazilian art-rock psychedelia that became with a busy, botched version of the pretty, fragmented ‘Metro Chabacanco’ various components of Our Latin Thing known as tropicalia. Bethânia followed a Mercedes Sosa standard ‘Alfonsina y el Mar’, by legendary Mexican composer Javier should make this an essential treat for more traditional path – as a song you can’t help feeling the whole experience Álvarez. All the pieces on Latin Perspective anyone who loves New York, documentary interpreter. And from the earliest days she is, like that Cardiff classic of Half and Half require both stellar ability and the sort film or peerless live music. was admired for her deeply resonant voice, (chips and an Indian curry), a fusion too far. of musical intuition that makes a good Mark Sampson filled with power and emotion. Chris Moss ensemble great. The Santiago Quartet is on Bethânia’s albums – especially those a mission to celebrate Latin America’s rich James Hill of the 70s and 80s – are often polluted Ahmed Dickinson & The concert repertoire. With Dickinson at their Man with a Love Song with overly lush strings, which are far Santiago Quartet side they sound positively joyous. Borealis Records too syrupy for many non-Brazilian ears. Latin Perspective Jane Cornwell Full Price (56 mins) This live show, recorded in March 2010 Cubafilin Records !!!! in Rio captures her without an orchestra, Full Price (50 mins) Fania All-Stars Little instrument. Big ideas fronting a choice band of old session !!! Our Latin Thing Sophisticated and musicians. By and large it serves as a Beatle beats, Afro-Cuban style. Strut/Fania playful, the songs delightful introduction to her work. Her And a whole lot more Budget Price (2 CDs, 100 mins) and tunes on this voice remains superb and the vast and A government-owned !!!!! new album from varied selection of songs include Bahian bar named Yellow Possibly the best salsa gig ever Canadian ukulele standards such as Dori Caymmi’s ‘É O S u b m a r i n e h a s This special edition sensation James Hill Amor Outra Vez’ and Caetano’s ‘Não recently opened in package celebrates the sound at times as if Oregon’s cosmopolitan Identificado’, classics like Chico Buarque’s Havana. Its Beatles- 40th anniversary of a big band Pink Martini have moved north of ‘Rosa Dos Ventos’, sambas (‘Feita Na themed interior – very special night. On the border. The consummate ease with Bahia’) and bossas (Vinícius de Moraes’ porthole windows, blue-and-yellow Thursday August 26 which he wields his uke is matched by a ‘Serenata Do Adeus’). However, in parts interior, Beatles lyrics on the walls – is the 1971, the stellar deep-rooted confidence in his songwriting the CD is poorly engineered – especially latest addition to the self-consciously musicians and vocalists of the Fania stable ability. These qualities were honed from a on the first CD, with tracks cross-faded progressive 21st century Cuba. In one of crowded onto the stage of Spanish young age, as Hill is a product of a and cut in mid-flow at whim, and loud life’s more serendipitous twists, this new Harlem’s Cheetah club to regale a teeming, concerted effort to open the eyes of cheering is inserted seemingly at random collaborative album, Latin Perspective, delirious audience with some of the most Canadian schoolchildren to the delights of for microseconds – jarring on the ear and features a re-working of ‘Beatlerianas’ – exciting music ever captured live. Volumes Hawaii’s pint-sized guitar. He has gone on breaking the intimacy of the live recording. songs by Lennon and McCartney arranged 1 and 2 of the legendary Live at the to be a leading uke player and teacher, and Alex Robinson by Leo Brouwer, currently CEO of the Cheetah set have now been augmented by on his 2009 collaboration with cellist Anne Cuban National Philharmonic Institute, a few bonus tracks – including Ray Davison, True Love Don’t Weep, he revealed Diego El Cigala and a Fab Four fan if ever there was one. Barretto’s sinuous ‘Cocinando’, which a talent as a singer too. Davison joins Hill Cigala & Tango Here, seven tracks ranging from accompanies the opening titles of the film again on this album, and Hill swaps uke for Edge Music/Universal banjo and piano at times to great effect. Full Price (46 mins) This collection just breezes by – a mix !! of bluegrass, jazz, junkyard skiffle and Uneasy bedfellows brooding singer-songwriter rock-pop – Tango and flamenco with beautifully observed lyrics flitting h av e e l e m e n t a l , between moody contemplation and wry thematic, tonal and humour. The backing vocals are delightful, rhythmic differences the arrangements unexpectedly refreshing. due to their entirely Listening to ‘Soap and Water’ or the s e p a r a t e , a n d two-part closer ‘Voodoo Forever, Aloha’, exceptional, cultural histories. On the reminds the listener of how fantastic evidence of this live album by flamenco dramatically creative music can be. singer, Diego El Cigala, marrying them is not What Hill has achieved here is to take a straightforward process. Where his the uke beyond its usual territory, where version of Cacho Castaña’s ‘Garganta con it is either being frantically strummed in a Fania Allstar’s Johnny Pacheco with Arena’ is rebellious and his take on the local children from the Spanish self-consciously comic manner, or plucked Cobián-Cadícamo classic ‘Nostalgias’ Harlem (El Barrio) in New York with unnecessary gravitas in an effort to 70 Songlines January/February 2012 070-AMERICASv3-SL81.indd 70 24/11/2011 12:15.