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Her
voice lilts like an exotic bird's yet is heavy with an
underpinning of omnipresent sorrow. Born on the tiny African
island of Cabo Verde, a former Portuguese colony, Cesaria Evora
soothes the listener's soul like dark coffee and molasses. Each
song takes you on a trip to lands unknown, washed by salty waves
and laden with sweet exotic fruit. In her song Petit Pays
she evokes the love of her small island and its people.
Petit
pays je t'aime beaucoup
Petit petit je l'aime beaucoup
Evora,
also known as 'the barefoot diva' for performing without shoes,
sings in a tradition called morna (a bluesy variant of the
Portuguese fado) accompanied by instruments such as the
four-stringed cavaquinho guitar and the accordion.
Like the fado singers of Portugal, Evora's singing is
impregnated with saudade, a Portuguese term for melancholic
nostalgia. Thought to have perhaps originated when
Portuguese women said goodbye to their men as they left to conquer
colonies as far away as India and China, saudade possesses
an indefinable quality, perhaps best approximated by the idea of
hope that one knows may never be answered. In his book In
Portugal, Aubrey Bell said, "The famous saudade of
the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that
does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the
present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an
active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming
wistfulness."
The
title song Sodade (Creole for saudade) on the
wonderful Miss Perfumado perfectly encapsulates both the
longing and joy of that word. Evora's transcendent, plangent
voice is the perfect remedy for a New York winter, as one thinks
wistfully and indolently of islands in the sun. Listen:
Miss
Perfumado
Listen:
The
Very Best of Cesaria Evora
Tags:
music
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