Brazil Beat

Raimundo Sodré

Born in Bahia in 1947, Raimundo Sodré grew up outside Ipirá surrounded by the sounds and influences of candomblé, which fused Yoruban and Catholic religious themes and cultures. His recording career doesn’t seem to begin until 1980 and was sidelined by 1983, apparently thanks to pressure from the military government. (Online info about him is sparse.) Since then he has released an album about once a decade. The Bahian guitar and singing recalls Gilberto Gil, but where Gil turned to Anglophone pop for his inspired fusion in the late ’60s, Sodré draws deeply from the wells of western and central Africa for samba with liquid guitar that hints soukous and highlife. His early work suffers from an under-recorded sound, but usually breaks through those limitations. The albums from his more nomadic period—he spent much of the ’90s living outside Brazil—build upon those first releases with stronger recording that lifts everything.

Centered upon the title track hit, which played with the language and imagery of the Catholic mass to turn it into a hymn for the masses of people struggling under Brazil’s dictatorship, Sodré’s debut chronicles the daily ups and downs of life with plenty of spritely accompaniment. The gospel-ish backing chorus on the forró-laced “Falavreando no Coió de Shirlena” is a sonic highlight. The closer, “Brasileiro, Profissão Sonhar” (Brazilian, Professional Dreamer), is a lyrically touching, musically propulsive examination of what it means to be from somewhere where your best national self seems perpetually out of reach.

His sophomore album, Coisa de Nego (Black Thing), is more of the same. The “Let It Be” cover grates, but that’s more Paul McCartney’s fault really. Elsewhere Sodré shows plenty of staying power. If there’s a concern it’s that his stylistic range seems pretty limited. Where Gil bounces off northeastern traditions to make new kinds of music, Sodré seems more willing to work within its frameworks. Fortunately, it’s a pretty vibrant framework. “Beijo Moreno”, his third album, begins to push out in other directions (some poppish nods, a bit of sertanejo. While the recording is still kind of thin, the incorporation of more updated sonics adds some depth.

And then nothing.

Sodré stopped recording. He traveled. Lived outside Brazil. And then in 1994 he released Real on a European label. But that turns out to have been a good thing.

The thin, low-fi sound of his early records underplayed the lower range and added a harsh edge to the upper. The songs were good enough to cut through those limitation, but they still diminished the results. On Real, the sound issues are fixed. Bass and percussion come through cleanly, while the mellower high end sounds let the beauty of the string instruments shimmer. “La Seine” recalls the gorgeous sounds of central Africa. Sodré’s voice sounds less strained, too..

And then nothing yet again.

Not until 2006 did Sodré release a follow up (Dengo), and, once again, it sounds even better. The songs are clearly and cleanly recorded, with instruments and voice given space. The beats relax ever so slightly so the music feels funky rather than frenetic. All of this allows Sodré’s always good songs to really sparkle. For all the excitement we attach to youth and young stars, there’s something deeply satisfying about watching someone master his craft over decades. Always good, and sometimes more than that, here Sodré is compelling. His leavening of Bahian traditions with Africa has never sounded so natural. He sounds at ease with himself and his art. He digs into his catalog a few times to rework earlier recordings, and tops them. Newer tracks sound vital and full in a way his earlier stuff can’t match.

And then, yet again, nothing.

Sodré disappears for another decade before returning with his most ambitious record. Teaming with some of his collaborators from the ’70s, before his solo career took off, Sodré revisits some older, unpublished tunes as well as writes some new ones. Thoroughly accomplished, it lacks the spark of Dengo, but it also draws upon decades of craft honing to sell the music. And “Dói Dói (Fraternité Egalité)” is as good as anything he’s recorded.

Given his pace, perhaps we can expect a new album in a couple of years. Until then, you can listen to his music here.

Grades:

A Massa (1980), B

Coisa de Nego (1981), B

Beijo Moreno (1983), B

Real (1994), B+

Dengo (2006), A-

Girassóis de Van Gogh (2015), B

Gilberto Gil

Musical revolutionary, exile, minister of culture: pretty stellar for a pop star résumé. It also captures Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira’s journey from game changing musician to cultural landmark. Alongside Caetano Veloso, Gil emerged as the face of tropicalismo inside and outside of Brazil. Rebelling against both military oppression and bossa nova strictures, excited by the Beatles and a consumption of foreign influences, the tropicalistas—which included more than musicians, but are best known for their musical achievements—pushed a nationalistic scene out of its comfort zone and helped make possible the musical culture that’s dominated Brazil since.

Gil was born in 1942 to an educated family (dad was a physician, mom a professor) in Salvador, Bahia. In college during the early 1960s, his love of music and art began to turn into something more than a hobby. After several years recording and performing, he finally released a debut album in 1967, started the tropicália movement, was exiled from Brazil by the military dictatorship, and returned to become one of the key figures of MPB. In 1987 he entered politics, serving in a couple of local offices in Salvador, returned to music while pursuing environmental causes, and then went back into politics as minister of culture from 2003-2008. He maintained his recording career the entire time.

Below are reviews of all his solo studio albums as well as a couple of his collaborations. Mostly missing are his live albums of which he has recorded a ton. Many are underwhelming. Veloso regards live albums as the chance to do art. Gil seems to think of live albums as documents of the good time he and the audience had at the show. Which, to be fair, often sound pretty fun. Most of the time I catch myself wishing I could be there for the electric moment, but these albums rarely reach out past the recording barrier to give the person at home a reason to listen. They include every live release ‘mistake’: singalong choruses, extended jams, between song patter—sometimes all on the same album. Every one of those can work when you are there, because it’s the moment. At home, they tend to be annoyances, and Gil never figures out how to use them in a way that makes his live records something that can stand on their own apart from show nostalgia. So you don’t need to spend the time listening to them. I did that for you. You’re welcome. (As always the language barrier is a problem here. Some of those between song talks are getting plenty of laughs.)

Gil turns 80 in June and is already doing shows to mark the occasion. See him if you can.

(Live albums and vault stuff included below is ordered by recording year, not the actual year released.)

Retirante (Vols. 1 & 2) (2010) – Juvenilia. False starts. Practice. Precursors. Nearly 70 minutes of the stuff recorded from 1962-1966 over two discs. These songs weren’t released until 2010, and you probably couldn’t hear the future in them at the time, hence not being released until 2010, but you can now. So it’s archive work. Research for fanatics. None of which means it isn’t worth your time. Not until you’ve heard the great stuff first, of course, but if you love that, hearing how it took shape is its own reward. Grade: B-

Louvação (1967) – His proper debut, and he still hasn’t arrived. The music sits awkwardly between the smooth bossa styles then dominant and the sonic adventures where Gil would take his national musics. The band arrangements struggle to mesh with the fast, chewy songs. The slow ones are nothing special. But on “Roda”, “Viramundo” and “Procissão” (the last of which he’ll remake on his breakthrough) you can hear what’s coming, and it’s pretty spectacular. Grade: C

Gilberto Gil aka Frevo Rasgado (1968) – This step into tropicália bursts with creativity and possibilities. The lead track explodes with a joyfully too-fast frevo beat which moves into an acoustic guitar strum that sounds like it’s been in a wreck, and so goes the rest of the album. Like the artier strains of late ’70s punk, you can hear new vocabularies emerging. Its oddness welcomes even as it alienates the smoother dogmas of bossa nova. Backed by Os Mutantes (who were never better than they are here), songs frag and lurch and contort. Some tempos race so that you wonder if the 33 1/3 is set to 45. It barely holds together, which is absolutely part of the thrill. Rock by people who can’t roll, but make it work anyway. (Four bonus tracks on some editions aren’t bad, but they detract from the itchy-glitchy flow of a stone-cold classic.) Grade: A

Gilberto Gil aka Cerebro Eletronico (1969) – With a different band, Gil makes his most convincing rock record. It still doesn’t really groove or even rock so much as jerk and twist. The sound—acid rock meets tropical cool—matches the circumstances of a guy under house arrest. (Veloso also recorded an excellent self-named album under arrest this year.) Sambafied, fuzzy blues guitar drenches the album in atmosphere that’s heavy without overpowering the deftly light Brazilian rhythms. The less frantic pace lets the songs sink in: the guy can write. The experiment “Objeto Semi-Identificado” goes nowhere, but the rest add up to what could be Gil’s strongest album. Add in the award-winning “Aquele Abraço”, which became a standard that demonstrated tropicália’s staying power, and you have what must be the first great Brazilian rock album. (Five bonus tracks on some editions extend the ideas and point toward the future good and bad. The latter being the 16-minute “Cultura e Civilização”, a portent of dubious extended jams to come.) Grade: A

Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, Barra 69: Ao Vivo Na Bahia (1972) – Released from house arrest, Gil and Veloso promptly head to the stage and quickly earn the ire of the authorities who hoped imprisonment would scare them into silence. This wretched sounding live album documents one of these shows before the military dictatorship rounded them up again and kicked them out of the country. The poor sound quality renders this one mainly of historical interest, but that “mainly” counts. The performances are lively and make you wish you were there, and it’s got two geniuses in their prime, so I can actually imagine listening to it again. Grade: B-

Copacobana Mon Amour (1970) – A soundtrack for a movie that apparently was never released. The shortest song is about five minutes, four go over seven, including one that clocks in at 14.23. Being that this is Gil’s peak period, the album isn’t without its interesting moments, but mainly it’s Gil, plus flute and hand percussion, playing joyfully, if a bit endlessly. Grade: C+

Gilberto Gil aka Nega (1971) – Stripped down, almost sedate by Gil’s standards, the setting suits the occasion: cut off from his people, his culture, his scene. English lyrics highlight the alienation and displacement. Gil transforms Steve Winwood’s “Can’t Find My Way Home” from a dissolute wandering to a lament of exile and steals it from him in the process. In contrast to Veloso’s London album, Gil sounds irrepressible, but slower tempos and songs that tend to wander tinge Gil’s normal ebullience with sadness and sense of being ungrounded. Some of the stronger melodies of his career help him pull off an album that could easily have sunk into self-pity. Grade: A-

Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa, Live in London ’71 (Vols. 1 & 2) (2014) – Gil has many, many live albums. Most of them are pretty bad. The shows themselves sound fun, but the documents include all the kinds of missteps bad live albums do: forced singalong choruses, extended jams, too much talking. This mixed bag doesn’t contain all those sins, but it has enough of them. In particular lengthening songs might work live when you can be entranced in the moment, but sitting at home the reasons for the excursions escape the ears. The bootleg quality sound doesn’t help either. Grade: C-

Expresso 2222 (1972) – Leading off with a jaunty Veloso instrumental, Gil gets down to business with the second track, “Back to Bahia”. Exile is over. He’s home and hyperactively happy. Founded on some of the most frenetic beats and guitar work of his career, Gil just wants to celebrate and dance to the music. Upon exile ending, Gil’s planned album was scrapped and this party was hastily assembled. That looseness shows sometimes, especially in the second half. Some of Gil’s strongest work is paired with songs that needed another go round. But the joy is undeniable, as is the ambition. Grade: A-

Umeboshi (Ao Vivo) (1973) – Released physically in 2017 as part of the Anos 70 Ao Vivo box set, this ’73 set captures both what’s interesting and problematic about Gil’s live albums. Seventeen songs in two hours and 25 minutes, which means the average song length is 8.5 minutes. Gil and the band stretch, explore and invent on the spot. But there’s no quality control filter. Some moments are exhilarating. “Essa É Pra Tocar No Rádio” sounds like lost electric Miles as its bops and sizzles, but pretty much every other track, especially the longer ones, meanders uselessly at some point. Improvisation is not Gil’s strength, but this is still a fascinating document. Most of these songs never saw studio versions released until Cidado do Salvodor came out years later. It’s a glimpse into a future that didn’t quite take shape, and even when it fails, it does so in ways that are interesting to hear and think about. But that makes this a scholar’s album, not a casual listener. Guess this project means I fall into the former group for the moment. Grade: C+

Cidado do Salvodor (2003) – Work tapes. Outtakes. That kind of stuff. Most are apparently leftovers from Expresso 2222 that failed to jell into their own separate album. Several were released on later albums in different forms. This 2003 collection brings them together as a kind of ‘lost’ Gil album. The first disc is mostly strong and hints at something nearly equal to his two tropicália period albums. The second meanders too much but includes the compilation’s highlight: “Maracuto Atômico” (second version), which he was smart enough to release as a single even then. Within these two discs is an A- album, but the bad stuff is indeed that. Even with their problems, both are testaments to his great, if scattershot, imagination. Essential for converts, and maybe even enough here to convert you if you are not. Grade: B-

Gilberto Gil (Ao Vivo) (1974) – Eleven tracks, only two of which appeared in studio form (and not until Gil Luminoso!) under Gil’s name. Funky “Herói das Estrelas” and prickly “Abra o Olho” are the ones you wish he’d done something with, and “Doa de Festa” would have been a nice fit for the albums of the period. But elsewhere are flaccid ballads that can’t hold your interest. Grade: C-

Gilberto Gil and Jorge Ben, Gil & Jorge: Ogum, Xangô (1975) – While both Gil and Ben were deeply rhythmic artists their approaches were very different. Gil’s twisty, chewy rhythms contrasted with Ben’s more straightforward grooves. The differences in their styles might have clashed over an entire album, but this collaboration is a gorgeous record that shows the best of both artists. (The album is sometimes marketed simply as Gil & Jorge, although the 1975 Brazilian release by that shortened name reduced the original two disc set to a single disc with edited versions of the songs). Gil stretched out on occasion, but rarely with compelling results, while Ben preferred to keep his cuts compact and focused. So when they got in the studio and simply jammed, you’d rightly be skeptical of the results. Yet over nine tracks—four over 10 minutes, another four over six—the two shine. Ben’s more straightforward guitar grounds the collaboration, but Gil isn’t simply subsumed into his colleague’s sound. On vocals, they don’t so much duet as converse. Although loose and flowing, the two push each other to take chances while staying focused and keeping their sprawling grooves from descending into formlessness. Familiarity with the originals isn’t necessary, but it helps you appreciate how they stretch each other. “Taj Mahal” is extended toward blissful eternity. Gil relaxes the tensed groove on “Essa É Pra Tocar No Rádio” so that it rolls punchily rather than pops frenetically. If the songs aren’t better than the originals—and that ‘if’ is definitely in play—they showcase two artists at the peak of their game getting out of their comfort zone and making compelling music from the challenge. Grade: A-

Refazenda (1975) – Compared to Gil’s earlier work, the songs themselves are fairly straightforward, but Gil decorates them, well, decorously with some gorgeous guitar. Mostly downtempo compared to the manic Expresso 2222, but the playful still abounds in the title track and “Essa é Pra Tocar No Rádio”. If the melodies were stronger, he might have pulled it off, but this album documents his Achilles’ heel: ballads. They aren’t terrible, but his melodies are rarely strong enough to hold your attention when slowed down and stripped of beats and guitar. I keep thinking this one is going to click, but in a decade of trying to hear greatness, I still here pretty good with a few that deserve to be compiled into better company. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethânia, Doce Bárbaros (1976) – On paper this is a juggernaut. But like most live documents the excitement of the show doesn’t quite translate. Much of it is indeed terrific. The cover of Milton Nascimento’s “Fé Cega, Faca Amoliada” turns the song from an intricate funk into a chaotic celebration that thrillingly threatens to fall apart. “Pássaro Proibido” slinks along satisfyingly. Since most of the songs were written for this collaboration, the album isn’t simply an afterthought to their careers, but it does leave you craving the extra quality control studios can bring, because this sounds like it could have been a classic with a little more focus. Maybe I should track down the documentary of the event. Grade: B

O Viramundo Vol. 1 &2 (1976) – The sound is still subpar, but finally a really good live album. He’s still at his peak creativity. About half the songs were either never recorded in the studio or done so much later. Best: they are mostly keepers. Some classics are rearranged for his then-current sound, which was at its twistiest. The extensions go somewhere. The second volume is a little quieter than it had to be, but unlike so many of his other live albums the show doesn’t drag when the tempos slow. For his first time: a live album that isn’t a historical document, but something worth listening to on its own. And I really wish “A Sociedade Afluente” had gotten the studio treatment. Grade: B+

Refavela (1977) – Gil’s beatwise like Jorge Ben, and without short shrifting Brazil’s beautiful rhythmic tradition, those two hit harder and funkier than their contemporaries tended to. But where Ben’s funk is pretty identifiable to American ears, Gil’s was always refracted through his anarchic, tropicalismo sensabilities. This time, he puts it out front. Inspired by a trip to Africa with Caetano Veloso, Gil goes all in on Afro-diaspora community. His funk is lighter and more agile than Ben’s because it owes more the Africa, whereas Ben’s was more North American. A couple of the slower songs meander boringly, but the rest comprises Gil’s best since Cerebro Eletronico, if not ever. Consider it his África Brasil. Not as good, because he’s not as good at albums as Ben is, but still exceptional—and gorgeous—stuff. Grade: A-

Realce (1979) – Where he goes soft. Or so I used to think. This is definitely quieter and slicker than was his norm. It’s transitioning to his later work. But transitions cut both ways, and I heard more of his early peak in this than I remembered. It helped that the version I streamed had seven bonus tracks livelier and funkier than what’s on the regular album I normally play. But even the nine that belong to the original release sounded bubblier and sharper than memory told me they would. Several sit alongside his best ’60s/’70s work. He even survives a Bob Marley cover, which is a feat considering the original. Grade: B

Nightingale (1979) – A stab at the American market. Like Milton Nascimento’s Raça, it raids a strong catalog to present the artist at his best. But, as with that album, something is lost in the translation. The playing loses some of the dexterous lightness that animates Gil’s best music. Songs that floated and danced sound a little heavier as sounds are, well, dumbed down for American ears. The songs are still dynamite but that touch of thud that’s supposed to connect to a rock culture muddies what made this stuff great in the first place. Grade: B-

Luar (A Gente Precisa Ver o Luar) (1981) – An accomplished album. Solid songs, including one of his best (“Palco”). But there’s something missing. The music is broader. The eccentricity is gone. Maybe a more consistent album on the whole, but the best parts of Realce did it better. And the change here is more or less permanent. It seems unfair to say he’s coasting on his still considerable talent, but, well, he’s kind of coasting. Grade: B-

Um Banda Um (1982) – Gil’s ballads are rarely his strength, but his albums generally don’t rise or fall on how well they work because rhythm is why you come and stay. So, really, the problem with his lesser albums is dinkiness. When those beats—light to begin with because of how he often bends them to support melodic flow—lose their snap, the energy flows out of his music. All of which is to say sometimes he’s dinky here. First two are ace, and there’s good stuff elsewhere. The ’80s sound is a bit of a drag, but on those first two Gil’s effervescence melds with his rhythms as compellingly as ever. After that quality dips and the broadness and loss of eccentricity on Luar becomes the norm. His songwriting hasn’t abandoned him, so even if little of this really grabs you, it doesn’t annoy either. Talented guy makes competent album. Could be much worse. Grade: B-

Extra (1983) – Here he goes all in on his Pan-African-American ambitions. Ten tracks of funky reggae-tinged, samba-touched R&B. In the first two or three you think he’s going to pull it off, but the quality shoots downward from there. Still competent. Less engaging. Grade: C+

Raça Humana (1984) – You’d think a guy who been harassed by the authorities would be dubious about sounding like a band called the Police. Plus some more reggae moves. Grade: C+

Dia Dorim Noite Neon (1985) – By this point, his ’80s pattern is clear. Fast songs that get across on beats and enthusiasm. Ballads go nowhere. Reggae at least competent, sometime a bit more. Beats do outnumber ballads, and this is slightly better than his decade’s norm, but you still feel he could be so much more. Grade: B-

Em Concerto (1987) – In which our hero takes all the missteps that dog his live albums and makes them work. Nine songs (the three bonus tracks on some versions aren’t worth the time) touching across his catalog with music updated for the then-current spot on his career soundscape. The mellower, slower versions of classics could have “Layla”ed your memories. Instead, they show from a new perspective why they are great songs. The band sounds in top shape both technically and aurally (no bootleg hiss here). The audience is warmly melded to the mix in a way that makes you feel you are there. If there are a few too many singalongs, the mood is so cheery you feel churlish complaining. Here’s that great live performer people have told me about. Grade: A-

Soy Loco Por Ti, América (1987) – When genius settles into talent, marginal difference matter, and here those margins favor the listener. His best album since Refavela simply by skipping the ballads. The focus lifts the competence into something closer to his peak work. He raids his catalog for some more surefire songwriting with lively remakes. If his rhythms aren’t quite as tricky or dexterous as peak, he comes close. He sounds alive again. [CD reissues add five tracks of mixed quality, including a 22 minute one I didn’t get through.] Grade: B+

O Eterno Deus Mu Dança (1989) – In his quest to embody the musical African diaspora, he adds a rap to the mix on the lead track, but otherwise it’s his standard decade fare and quickly falls back into nondescript. The ’80s cheese increases—the taming of the saxophone, a fierce beast in the right hands, is a big reason so much ’80s mainstream music has aged poorly—and the tempos slow way too much as the album goes on. But it’s also one where I’m reminded that I wish there were good translations, because it sounds like he’s dissing Bob Dylan for going Christian and honoring Bob Marley as a better Jew, while praising African syncretism for improving European religious traditions. He’s interesting in ways language impoverished Anglophones may never fully appreciate. Grade: C+

Parabolicamará (1991) – Tougher. The guitar is clearer in the mix than almost any of his ’80s albums. The songs range less widely across the pan-African diasporas, but that means the rhythms are more grounded in the Brazilian traditions he knows best how to make something of. When he does slow it down, the melodies are stronger and sweeter with richer arrangements that provide ear candy to keep you interested. None of which makes this a great album, but after 12 years of mostly subpar by his peak standards, it’s a definite return to form. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, Tropicália 2 (1993) – Revisiting the glorious past is always tricky. You’ll never recapture what made it glorious. So this Veloso/Gil collab celebrating their tropicália moment 25 years after won’t convince you it’s equal to that breakthrough. But listening context matters. Where for Veloso, the album was part of a strong rebound from his ’80s nadir, it plays a little differently for Gil. Veloso’s ’90s compete with his peak work, but for Gil the decade rebound was more modest. (In fairness, the ’80s fall was less, too.) So the impact is less striking, more touched with nostalgia rather than part of an admirable artistic rebirth. At the time it seemed reasonable to think this album’s success was due to Gil’s rhythm-sense and that he was doing Veloso the favor, but given how their careers have unfolded over the last 30 years, that judgment seems backward. But whether it’s nostalgia-tinged or not, a good album is a good album, and actually this is a great one. Grade: A-

Quanta (1997) – Where Veloso spent his ’90s retrenching and pushing his art in new directions, Gil settled into the role of cultural elder statesman while turning his energy to politics. He first served in local offices in Salvador in 1987-1993, then turned toward environmental efforts before joining the national government from 2003-08. Although Gil was between political posts when it was released, Quanta captures perfectly the settling of his artistic career into an honorable middle age. The production is the clearest on a solo album since the ’70s, which gives Gil’s voice and guitar space to breath. The songs are less ambitious as he settles into comfortable Brazilian sounds. He nails it all anyway. If he’s not going to remake Brazil’s musical future or make you rethink his art from new angles, he’s just going to impress you with how good he is at what he does with the added benefit of 35 years of experience to bring it together. So that fetching guitar on “Venedor de Caranguejo” and the way the horn section wraps around it or the bubbly, rolling funk of “Água Benta” might be nothing new to Gil fans, but it’s a compelling regurgitation. There’s a stronger single disc version in these two discs, but the one they issued left off “Água Benta”, so go for the larger set. One and a half hours of inspired professionalism, which is more than a lot of aging artists can manage. Grade: B

O Sol de Oslo (1998) – Recorded in Norway in 1994 as the follow up to Parabolicamará. Shelved, and then brought out four years later. In many ways his most ambitious album since the ’70s, but initially it’s all a bit off putting. Marlui Miranda joins him on several tracks and sings in a more classical style. Some tracks have fusion jazz flourishes. The arrangements are a tad staid as they seem to aim for ‘respectable’ or ‘art’ or some such, which doesn’t fit the loose, playful Gil well at all. But on a relisten to lock in my grades, it snuck up on me. The best stuff here recaptures some of the excitement, the ambition of his 1967-1977 peak. Even when the music doesn’t quite fit Gil’s style, he keeps pushing to make the sound his own. In the end it’s his rhythmically toughest album since Refavela. If the formal touches irritate and restrict the music rather than improve it, the closer you listen the more you hear Gil making something out of it. Grade: B

As Canções de Eu, Tu, Eles (2000) – Combination soundtrack/tribute to Luiz Gonzaga, Gil’s most exuberant solo album in more than 20 years falls back on his strengths and loves to provide the serious fun you expect with this guy. Most of these songs are covers of Gonzaga, but Gil stamps his own personality on them. Mood is up. Music is frothy without being frivolous. Gil sounds perfectly at home living in this past he makes vividly present. Grade: B+

Gilberto Gil and Milton Nascimento, Gil & Milton (2000) – Old fart music. But it’d be pure ageism to deny the pleasures here: two old friends getting together, enjoying the music, enjoying the company. Nascimento inspires some of Gil’s strongest singing in years, while rhythm saint Gil lights a fire under Nascimento, who too often confuses beauty with torpor. Loose, fun, not embarrassing. Which is a triumph in old fart music. Grade: B-

Kaya N’Gan Daya (2002) – Bob Marley tribute album. Competent, sometimes more. On occasion Gil’s lightness loses hold of the toughness that makes even quieter reggae compelling, but he knows beats well enough to pull off the homage musically, and his lived experiences give him credibility when he takes up Marley’s socio-political mantle. Little, if any, will make you prefer these versions to the originals, but if you heard it playing, I bet you wouldn’t complain either. Grade: B-

Eletracústico (Ao Vivo) (2004) – Typical late period live set. Accomplished. Well played and recorded. Kinda boring in its respectable representations of songs that were more than that. Still bet it was fun to be there. Grade: C+

Gil Luminoso (2006) – Gil with only his guitar and voice revisits the past. Aging artists reinterpreting earlier stuff isn’t necessarily a dead end, but it often is. Gil’s voice isn’t transcendent anymore. His reinterpretations are the kind of subdued some mistake for deep thought or emotions, when it’s really just sounds like flagging energy levels. Grade: C+

Banda Larga Cordel (2008) – Back with a band. Spirits are high. At first this seems like a return to form, but spend a little time with it and the limitations start to grate. The rote songs hold together more because of good mood more than their merits. Take his name off the package and you would find it hard to distinguish from dozens of other run-of-the-mill, tourist-grade tropical parties. Grade: C+

Fé Na Festa (2010) – Some of Gil’s best post-peak work has been when he focused on the northeast, which only drives home how central those rhythms and modes have been to his art from the beginning. Half originals, half covers, this tends a little professional at times, but it’s mostly a fun romp through sounds that inspired him to remake those traditions into something that honored them while sending Brazilian music in new directions. He sounds more energetic than he had in nearly a decade. Maybe he was just glad to be out of politics. Grade: B-

Gilbertos Samba (2014) – João Gilberto’s bossa nova innovations with Tom Jobim inspired a generation of Brazilian musicians. Gil honors that achievement with a covers album (plus a couple of originals). Not as cool as the master, Gil still tones it down to meet Gilberto’s mood on his own terms. The results are interesting in the non-backhanded compliment way. Gilberto’s relaxed was tensed with technical mastery. Gil filters that cool through his tropicalismo spirit, so even as it’s laid back by his normal standards, it still pops and bubbles compared to the control of Gilberto. None of it will make you forsake the originals, but it’s an intriguing take on music most simply try to echo. Grade: B

Gilbertos Sambas Ao Vivo (2014) – Even better than the studio version. Gil’s voice isn’t always up to the task, but his guitar is masterful here. He leans a little more into his own style of playing. The results feel less experimental, and Gil’s warm persona inhabits someone else’s classics to make them his own for this moment while throwing in a few of his own to politely remind you he’s a legend in his own right. Exemplary, late career stuff on how to keep living in the world when you no longer revolutionize it. Grade: B+

OK OK OK (2018) – In many ways, this is Gil’s first proper solo album in 20 years. No themes or tributes or journeys through Brazil’s past. After a couple of rough years healthwise, Gil digs deep to make an album that’s more than just a rehash of his past perhaps because he’s not sure of how long a future he has. The title track addresses Bolsonaro’s Brazil, and develops a political approach beneath its seeming refusal to lead, but mostly he focuses on the smaller joys in life that sustain when difficulties—personal or political, it doesn’t matter; they’re both existential—threaten to overwhelm. You can hear he’s trying. For the first time since he recorded O Sol de Oslo, he’s not simply coasting on his considerable talent and trying to make an album that matches his best. But the strongest music of his post-peak period can’t fully take off because his voice weighs it down. Where once he soared, here his aged, slightly graveled voice can’t keep up with the tunes. The acoustic versions on the deluxe version highlight this most, but even the full-band stuff can’t cover it up completely. Sapped of the vocal energy that made him vital, excellent songs struggle to take flight. They come close—so close that this still sounds pretty great—but in the end it falls short of his (admittedly considerable) peaks. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Grade: B+

Gilberto Gil and BaianaSystem, Gil Baiana ao Vivo em Salvador (2020) – Legend and possible future legends get together for show, which given their rhythmic proclivities sounds promising. Maybe you had to be there. Grade: C

São João em Araras (Ao Vivo) (2021) – In full northeastern mode here with lots of jaunty accordion to prove it. This set steps of the energy, something lacking on recent studio and live albums. He’s not dead yet. Neither is his music. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso

It’s hard to find a bigger name in Brazilian music. João Gilberto? Antonio Carlos Jobim? Milton Nascimento? Maybe. Elis Regina? Gilberto Gil? Jorge Ben Jor? Close, but not quite. Tom Zé? For a certain audience perhaps. Carmen Miranda? How old are you? In the wider world, Caetano Veloso has been the representative figure for Brazilian music for several decades now. Even though Gilberto’s & Jobim’s bossas might be the representative sound, Veloso is the figure who seems to have broken through to non-Lusophone audiences.

Born in 1942 in Santo Amaro, Bahia, Caetano Emanoel Viana Teles Veloso was the fifth son of a postal official and a mother who lived to the ripe age of 105. He also helped name his younger sister, the singer Maria Bethânia. Drawn to the arts, Veloso planned a career in film but, like many young Brazilians, was carried away by the bossa nova craze that set Brazilian music on its modern path. As a young musician, he fell in with some fellow political and musical troublemakers, the tropicalistas (Gilberto Gil, Nara Leão, Tom Zé, Gal Costa, and Rita Lee, Sérgio Dias and Arnaldo Baptista of Os Mutantes). In the oft-told tale, Veloso shook up the by-then conservative bossa nova movement by incorporating non-Brazilian musics into the mix, angered the military dictatorship, and was exiled to London with Gil for three years before returning triumphantly—artistically at least as the dictatorship had another decade in it—as one of the leading figures of MPB. In the 1980s he began to be recognized internationally, which firmly set him up as the most noted Brazilian musician of his generation. His more than 50-year recording career is full of hallmark albums of Brazilian music (including seven which ended up on Rolling Stone Brazil’s top 100 Brazilian albums list), he got Jorge Ben Jor a recording contract when the industry had given up on him, and became a globally celebrated artist. Yet despite more than four years of blogging on Brazilian music, I hadn’t listened to much three early albums. Time to rectify that.

But first: honesty time. As a non-Lusophone, I generally only get snatches of verbal meaning through awkward free online translation. Sometimes that’s not a big deal. Jorge Ben and Tom Zé seem to have some fine lyrics, but their primary contribution is formal musical innovation more than literary meaning. Like Dylan, Veloso has always been a word hound. His music absolutely has the formal smarts and hooks to lure in an Anglophone, but his words clearly matter in understanding his art to an extent that is not true of Ben or even his fellow tropicalista Gilberto Gil. That voice—intense, yet lulling, like the ocean this self-proclaimed beach lover has seen and heard many times—sits at the center of his sound, so it’s hard to ignore the significance of his verbal meaning. Translations help, but as I’ve said before, I find them of limited value. It’s nice knowing what an artist is singing about. It can increase or decrease the pleasure. But reading a translation alongside the singing doesn’t get me any closer to what really works about the vocal art. With a translated book, I’m losing something, but I still read the words in English. With music, I read the words, but the ears hear, in this case, Portuguese. There’s a gap between sound and meaning translation can’t quite jump. I still like to translate some, but I’m not kidding myself that a translation helps me to figure out if Veloso’s supporters are right that he’s one of the greatest songpoets of our time. So, as with Baco Exu do Blues, I know I’m not getting Veloso in a crucial way, and whatever my judgments, they are even more suspect than usual. But that music still matters, and understanding Veloso even somewhat seems nearly a moral obligation for someone who likes to opine publicly on Brazilian music. The more I learn to hear his music in its historical context, the more I appreciate what he and his friends accomplished.

Veloso’s catalogue is vast. He has soundtracks, collaborative albums and live albums in addition to his regular studio solo recordings. I’ve skipped most of his collaborations and soundtracks, and only included about half of his live albums. I believe all his regular studio solo albums are present. One final comment. I put almost all the albums below onto a massive playlist. When I hit shuffle, even tracks from the ‘bad’ albums often sounded pretty good in the context. So of course I went back and re-listened, even if the weaker grades made sense. It’s a reminder that even ‘bad’ Veloso is pretty good.

Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso, Domingo (1967) – A solid debut with close collaborator and friend Costa. In the shadow of what came after, it seems rather timid: a fairly straight bossa nova album with none of the stylistic daring that the two, with the tropicalistas, will unleash before the year closed out. But it’s also confident, with the stronger songs more reminiscent of João Gilberto’s coolly intense early bossa music than the showier stuff being popularized by Elis Regina and others at the time. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Caetano Veloso (a.k.a. Tropicália) (1968) – Tropicália actually kicked off in 1967, but the first wave of albums didn’t arrive until 1968. This triumph, along with Gilberto Gil’s second album and the Tropicália Ou Panis Et Circensis collaboration, are shots fired across the bow of the bossa nova establishment as well as the military dictatorship. The lead track, “Tropicália”, is a statement of purpose musically and lyrically looking toward Brazil’s musical past as it builds its future. Inspired by Mário de Andrade’s modernist cannibalism, Veloso and the tropicalistas reached out beyond Brazil to absorb influences while transforming them into something deeply Brazilian. Brazilian musics collide with avant-European dissonance, rock psychedelia, and showtune brazenness for a heady, deep mix that disorients and delights. A classic. Grade: A

Caetano Veloso, Caetano Veloso (a.k.a. Irene) (1969) – Recorded while under house arrest, Veloso’s third album builds on the innovations of the second. Lyrics foreshadow the dislocation of the exile he and Gilberto will soon experience. Rogério Duprat’s dense arrangements darken the mood and fill even the upbeat songs with a discomfiting undercurrent. Veloso’s songs are smoother, less jumpy than on his second album, and his singing grows more confident. In retrospect, this is where Veloso demonstrates he’ll be more than a flash in the pan. Grade: A

Caetano Veloso, Caetano Veloso (a.k.a. A Little More Blue) (1971) – The exile album. Like Gil’s similar effort, these songs are sung in English and exude the disconsolate life of a child of sunny Brazil stuck in perpetually overcast England. But where depressed Gil still had buoyancy, Veloso seems to sink in the boggy mire. Too many of these songs wander purposelessly, which is appropriate as exile metaphor, but not the best listening experience. Only two match his best work. The title track looks wistfully back to his days of house arrest where at least he was in Brazil. The touchingly wicked love letter to his sister “Maria Bethânia” manages to work up some of his playfulness even if it goes on too long. The rest fits the mood and the context, but doesn’t transcend them or their limitations. Grade: C+

Caetano Veloso, Transa (1972) – No longer an exile from rua principal, or any Brazilian rua for that matter, Veloso returns home rejuvenated. After the dour fourth album, this one picks up where Caetano Veloso/Irene left off. Rock influenced, but not rock, he continues to blaze new trails for MPB. The title translates as “Fuck”, but given the dictatorship’s censorship, I’m guessing it’s not that blunt. Where exile seems to continue are in the lyrics, most of which are in English. As a whole, it’s one of Veloso’s most accomplished albums. The song never let up as Veloso ends exile, but not alienation. It sums up his early career and sets the stage for his adventurous 1970s. Grade: A

Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque, Caetano e Chico Juntos E Ao Vivo (1972) – A triumphant return home where Veloso makes common cause Buarque who’d been on the opposite side of the tropicália/bossa nova feud. Shared left politics and opposition to the dictatorship can’t quite overcome aesthetic divisions that are still present, however. Grade: C

Caetano Veloso, Araçá Azul (1973) – His most experimental and difficult album. Not an easy listen. Tracks like “Sugar Cane Fields Forever” are impressive in some kind of cold, technical way, but compare Veloso’s art trips here with what Tom Zé’s was doing about the same time on Todos Os Olhos. Where Zé’s avant remains firmly rooted in songcraft so that the pop and the art rub against other with triumphant tension, Veloso struggles to escape ‘science project’ status. But as much as I—like, apparently, Brazil’s public—hated it at first, I’ve come around. Eventually his melodies break through the jags, and at this point his impish intelligence is irrepressible. So what initially just sounds like messing around in the studio coheres into something recognizable as great Veloso music. It’s still not as good as Zé’s songful avant, and I’m glad he didn’t keep going down this path, but when he did it here, he did it well. Grade: A-

Caetano Veloso, Jóia (1975) – Veloso bounces back from a commercial flop with a tunes album that leavens the experimentalism into its mix. The first three on side one and the first two on the second side are among his strongest songs ever. Fetching melodies are decorated with smart instrumentation and arty tricks. But after that he falls into ballads that are solid without approaching his mesmerizing peak. Overall he’s in fine form continuing the rock-not-rock MPB moves of Transa while playing with form and sound without letting those tricks get in the way of those melodies and that voice. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Qualquer Coisa (1975) – Quieter and softer than Jóia. The unadorned songs are built around Veloso’s gorgeous voice, but that voice draws you into the words, which beg the question of meaning. But the music still speaks past the language barrier. Considering eight of the 12 tracks are covers, he probably didn’t have two albums in him that year. Most of the covers are ace, but did we really need three Beatles songs in a row? Combine the best songs here—”A Tua Presença Morena”, “Da Maior Importância”, the Ben cover—and put them with the strongest from Jóia, and you would have had another classic. But I supposed two pretty great ones is decent compensation. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Muitos Carnavais (1977) – Compilation of carnival tracks, only one of which seems to have appeared on another album. Frevos and samba marches. That kind of stuff. Bahian guitar and Veloso’s voice dominate. How much you get out of this depends how much carnival music you can take in one setting. Too much gets too frothy for me. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, Bicho (1977) – Inspired by a trip to Nigeria with Gilberto Gil, Veloso gets funky. Not as impressive an appropriation of African music as Gil’s Refavela of the same year, it’s still pretty good and the closest Veloso came to making a dance record. The funk recedes as the album goes on and he returns to the ballad ground that is becoming his primary mode, but those rhythms provide momentum that keep the fun going strong. Grade: A-

Maria Bethânia and Caetano Veloso, Ao Vivo (1978) – Decent set with sister Maria. Arrangements lean toward upscale, jazzy lounge. The two singers are in fine form. Grade: B-

Caetano Veloso, Muito (Dentro da Estrela Azulada) (1978) – A transitional album. Veloso is still playing with form, shifting from style to style, but it’s quieter and softer, pointing to a future where his music will be smoothed out and his voice and songwriting firmly hold the center of his art. It’s liveliest on his slick cover of Ben’s “Quem Cochicha o Rabo Espicha” and the Gil co-write “São João, Xangô Menino.” The ballads aren’t bad, but they hint at the problems to come in his ’80s music. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Cinema Transcendental (1979) – For his final album of the decade Veloso leaves behind his more experimental past and shifts into mature mode. He still writes musically smart songs, but he’s clearly songs first at this point. Arrangements, melodies, etc. serve the song rather than being elements to play with as he explores how far he can bend Brazilian song form. And if that sounds like a backhanded compliment, it’s not. After some initial resistance—formal smarts are the easy way in when you can’t get the verbal content—I’ve learned to hear this as the great album others have told me it is. The cover has Veloso laying on the beach staring toward the eternity of an ocean horizon fits the mood here perfectly. Serene songs drift by unhurriedly as Veloso revels in the beauty of life as well as the melancholy the pursuit of it often brings. Superficially less ambitious than the albums that precede it, Cinema Transcendental nonetheless achieves its title by celebrating the ecstasies of the mundane. Grade: A-

Caetano Veloso, Outra Palavras (1981) – But the thing about song albums is you have to have the songs to pull them off. An album like Araçá Azul can work despite flaws in part because the textures, structural games, etc., can tickle your ears. But once you simplify and put the songs out front you have less wiggle room. Softer and less intense than Cinema Transcendental, this sometimes veers toward the easy listening mush that ’80s MPB tended to. But veering toward isn’t arrival, and there are still enough melody and voice to get this stuff across even if the end result doesn’t feel titanic in the way his albums mostly had for 14 years. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, Cores, Nomes (1982) – But the thing about song albums is you have to have the songs to pull them off. An album like Araçá Azul can work…wait. This sounds familiar. Grade: B-

Caetano Veloso, Uns (1983) – But the thing about song albums is you have to have the songs to pull them off. An album like…aw crap. Grade: B-

Caetano Veloso, Velô (1984) – I’ll give him this. He’s not repeating himself. His most vibrant and engaged album since Cinema Transcendental. But it still sucks. The songs never cohere. The ’80s production adds an extra slice of cheese. A true rarity: a skippable Veloso album. Grade: C-

Caetano Veloso, Caetano Veloso (1986) – But the thing about song albums is…oh for crying out loud. Grade: C+

Caetano Veloso, Totalmente Demais (1986) – Veloso gets that the “live” in live album needs to mean something. So he packs his with covers and other non-album tracks, and he brings it attitude-wise. Where so much of his ’80s work struggles to get past pleasant, here he has some of the impish charisma that helped make him such a central figure in Brazilian music. Even the quiet tunes burst with energy. However nondescript his studio work had become in recent years, at least live he still seemed a vital artist. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, Caetano (1987) – Marginally more engaged than most of his decade’s work, he occasionally arouses the old passions (“Eu Sou Neguinha?”) thanks to a renewed interest in rhythms, but mostly it trades in diminishing returns. Quality stuff in its way, but also the sound of treading water in poorly aged ’80s sonics. Grade: C+

Caetano Veloso, Estrangeiro (1989) – Working with avant-nerds from NYC, Veloso enters the American market with his strongest album since Cinema Transcendental. Joined by Brazilian-raised American Arto Lindsay and his Ambitious Lovers collaborator Peter Scherer (as well as Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot on some tracks), Veloso performs with a verve reminiscent of his great experimental ’60s and ’70s albums. Where most of his ’80s songs just sort of lay there, these jump and twist and slice while maintaining the post-samba cool. Veloso takes risks again rather than just coasting on his talent. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Circuladô (1991) – Where Estrangeiro sometimes bore more the imprint of Ambitious Lovers than Veloso, here he seems in charge again. Lindsay and some of his NYC pals are still there, but the sound is pure Veloso. Helps that Lindsay’s production is clearer and fuller than the sometimes muffled sound on the predecessor. But the real victory is Veloso’s contributions. This is the strongest set of songs he’s delivered since Cinema Transcendental, and even better is the singing which shakes off the lassitude of the ’80s with a clear, intense performance. Arrangements play up the oddness of his music and counterpoint the beauty of his melodies and singing viciously if subtly. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Fina Estampa (1994) – After three records that jolted his career back to life, Veloso settles back into something more familiar. NYC sonics are gone. The quieter sounds of the ’80s records returns. But Veloso never sounds complacent. He remains an exceptional singer who knows how to get a melody across. Here he covers Latin American classics but brings Brazilian gentleness to ballads that sells them better than Latin romanticism sometimes does. Not as bracing as the three that precede it, but the sound of a restless artist still exploring what kind of music he can make. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, Livro (1997) – Sublime. Apotheosizing the revitalization of his art, Veloso brings together the sharper rhythms of the previous few albums with his intensely calm voice and levitating melodies for his strongest album since his peak. The contrast with most of his ’80s work is clear. That music wasn’t just soft, but slack. Here everything feels light and airy, but also tough with arrangements that never go limp. Veloso revels in the beauty of books, celebrates the musical past that helped make his then current Brazil possible without forgetting the crimes his country will never fully overcome. Within our dystopian moment, the joy and beauty of this record are a startling reminder that the world before 2000 promised a different future than the one we got. Grade: A

Caetano Veloso, Prenda Minha (1998) – Another strong live album. Veloso’s secret is he doesn’t seem to think live albums are cash grabs or fillers between studio releases. A live album is a chance to capture the art he does in person as surely as studio albums capture the art he does there. From covers to differing arrangements to oddball selections, his live albums include all kinds of savvy tricks to avoid retread. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Omaggio A Frederico E Giulietta – Ao Vivo (1999) – In 1997, Frederico Fellini’s sister invited vocal fan Veloso to a tribute concert in San Marino. The result is this homage to Fellini and actress/spouse Giulietta Masina. Taking up his own songs, Brazilian classics and some from Fellini’s movies, he pens a sonic love letter. Tight, spare accompaniment from Jorge Helder (bass), Jaques Morelenbaum (cello), Carlos Balla (drums) and Luiz Brasil (guitar) supports the melodies and Veloso’s voice while still providing enough musical interest to be more than just backdrop. Veloso contends he wasn’t on top of his game vocally this evening, but whatever technical flaws in his singing, he’s never sung as warmly or lovingly. Not as historically significant as his early work, but there is no better showcase for his artistry than this late career display of mastery. Grade: A+

Caetano Veloso, Noites do Norte (2000) – Not bad by any means, but the closest to boring he’s been since before Estrangeiro. The performances aren’t phoned in as some of his ’80s records felt, but it does feel like he’s not really challenging himself. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, A Foreign Sound (2004) – One of his most acclaimed albums in the Anglophone world, and surely that has nothing to do with the fact that he sings in English, right? I resisted at first because I was a ‘real’ Brazilian music fan and Jorge Morelenbaum’s string arrangements tend a tad too lush for my tastes. But, really, this fits with nicely with his work since 1989 and is a good companion piece to the Latin covers on Fina Estampa. And because I’m a Yank, I find myself preferring this tour through the States’ musical legacy. Veloso shows love and deconstruction are necessary partners in good art, and of course he sings the manure—intentionally polite word for intentionally polite music—out of it. There are missteps. Shoulda lost the guitar solo on “Come as You Are”. The Talking Heads cover is too obvious. “Feelings” can’t be saved. But he was made for the great American songbook, and, outsider that he is, he shows Tin Pan Alley and its cultural rivals really are neighbors in that songbook. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, Cinema Olympia: Caetano Raro & Inédito 67-74 (2006) – Fascinating vault dive from his peak period. Especially early on, these songs are wilder and more daring than what ended up on record back then. But in almost every case you can hear why the tracks didn’t make the cut: a lack of focus, stuff that doesn’t quite jell, etc. In other words, for an archeological project it’s tremendous in how it helps you hear avenues not taken on the official releases. Essential for fanatics and scholars. But as an album, a listening experience? Well, as a guy who has spent the last few months obsessing over this stuff, that’s hard to answer. At the end of that process, it’s fascinating and fun enough. At the beginning? Not so much when the official product was so on point. On some abstract level, I could probably justify upping this grade a notch or two, but I’m not going to. Grade: B-

Caetano Veloso, Cê (2006) – In the ’80s, Veloso’s art got stale. But since reviving himself in 1989, he’s found ways to keep old tricks sounding fresh. Here he teams with son Moreno—who had recently made a splash with Dominico Lancellotti and Kassin in the +2 projects—guitarist Pedro Sá, drummer Marcello Callado and bassist Ricardo Dias Gomes for new tricks. Tapping alternative rock the way he’d tapped the spirit of the Beatles in his tropicália years is a daring move for an icon who could just coast impressively. Nothing since Araçá Azul has sounded so far from his norm. Yet ambition doesn’t equal result. The problem is Veloso and the material are mismatched. Beatles melodicism fused easily with Brazilian musics, but grungy alternative rock tends dour, so those airy flights of ecstatic melody upon which Veloso built his career struggle to take off here. The buzzy electric guitar often distracts from the delicate intensity of his voice, and the relatively straight rock rhythms don’t suit his songwriting. Or maybe the songs and melodies just aren’t up to snuff. The ’80s records were duller, but more successful, because even in rote mode, Veloso could spin out passable competence. Here he struggles. A dozen or so listens in, I’ve come to appreciate a handful of these, but that’s a lot of work for pretty meager payoff. Grade: C

Caetano Veloso, Zii E Zie (2009) – Markedly better attempt at alt-rock with the same team. Here Veloso sounds more comfortable with the music. The instrumentation doesn’t compete with his voice. His songwriting meshes with the arrangements. Rhythms get more samba and funky, and he even throws in an actual one on “Ingenuidade”. The marginal improvements on the songs here compared to Cê make all the difference. Not great Veloso, but something you could enjoy hearing again. Grade: B-

Caetano Veloso, Ao Vivo Caetano Zii E Zie (2011) – Whatever problems Cê and Zii E Zie had are resolved here. Once again, Veloso shows that his live albums are rarely just throwaways. It helps that he can draw from his larger catalog of songs. “Irene” and “Maria Bethânia” are just better than anything he wrote for those two albums. But even the stuff from his alt-rock albums loosens ups and shines a little more here, and loose and shiny fits him. Grade: B

Caetano Veloso, Abraçaço (2012) – What’s that about third times around? Veloso finally sounds comfortable in his (temporary) alt-rock skin. He sings effortlessly over music that he struggled to express through earlier. His band—the same troupe as the previous two albums—brings together rock and Brazil without the awkwardness of earlier efforts. The secret, of course, is that it’s the most Brazilian of the three albums, so Veloso knows what to do. He uses the rock elements to make his music rather than trying to force his music into those formal constraints. Some of the playfulness of his tropicália work is present even as he explores dark themes (as he did then, too). When he slows it down, the somberness isn’t dreary or dour but simmers calmly with a mournful anger as he recounts the crimes his country (and others) are capable of. In other words, it’s what you expect from a good Veloso record. Grade: B+

Caetano Veloso, Moreno Veloso, Zeca Veloso and Tom Veloso, Ofertório Ao Vivo (2018) – Document of the 2017 tour that brought together father and sons. The CD version compacts it to 14 tracks, but the streaming one goes all in with 28. Unsurprisingly, they mostly play Dad’s stuff, but he makes it a family affair by including scion songs, and in this company the kids don’t sound so bad. Unfortunately that’s because the paterfamilias isn’t at his best. Caetano has been accused of being soft, but beneath the calm of his best music is an intensity that resists limp. Here the accusation lands. Whatever personal warmth this tour generated for family and audience fails to get across the recording barrier. The uptempo ones are merely passable recreations of studio success while the slow ones mostly drag. Caetano is normally a master of the live album format. Here he’s just boring. Grade: C+

Caetano Veloso and Ivan Sacerdote, Caetano Veloso & Ivan Sacerdote (2020) – Nine catalog songs rerecorded with Veloso joined by young clarinetist Sacerdote. The two met at a party, hit it off and decided to make an album. There’s no denying the quality of the music, but there’s nothing to really separate it from the originals. Would have been really fun to hear at that party, however. Grade: B-

Caetano Veloso, Meu Coco (2021) – From Estrangeiro to Abraçaço, Veloso relentlessly and restlessly pushed his art. But in the nine years since that he turned 70 and that run ended, he seems to have lost some steam. No new studio songs. Mediocre live albums that seemed more autumnal retrospectives than new art. So this modest retread is a late career surprise in two ways. First, he sounds comfortable with himself on a studio album in a way he hasn’t since A Foreign Sound if not Livro. The alt-rock trilogy was admirable, but also sounded like Veloso was struggling to adapt to a new sonic world. Second, even though this is the ‘laziest’ studio album he’s done since Noites do Norte, he nails it because he sounds committed. Some of these songs could easily fit onto his classic ’70s albums. His voice has lost a smidge of its transcendence, but the human fits the humane in here: his love of Brazil’s music old and new, his hatred of its politics, the ambivalence that the old always have as their world and lives disappear. But as an oldster he also gets to sing to his newest grandkid with a tenderness youngs probably couldn’t pull off. Sure many of the stories, and melodies, you’ve heard before. Olds repeat themselves. But some youngs haven’t figured out that not all repetition is nostalgia. It reminds us that if the old days weren’t always good, they were that sometimes, and when the current days aren’t good either, we can remember the olds got through it, so maybe we will, too. Grade: A-

Incandescent Until the End

Elza Soares changed my life.

Listening to A Mulher do Fim do Mundo in bed last night, I pondered how different my life is because of it. It started with a Robert Christgau review of Woman at the End of the World (the English-language title). Released in Brazil in 2015 and internationally in 2016, it was the rare Brazilian album that he liked and that garnered much notice outside the too small claque of critics who wrote about Brazilian music in the Anglophone world. The slashing guitars and discordant funkiness of its alt-samba was startling. No go-down-easy bossa grooves for late nights. This was music that lived up to its apocalyptic title.

When Jason Gubbles reviewed Romulo Fróes’ Por Elas. Sem Elas, I began to realize Soares’ sound was bigger than that album. The often rightly derided streaming algorithms led me to Rodrigo Campos then Passo Torto then Metá Metá, which led my dazzled ears to want to know more, which led to research, which led to figuring out that these artists were actually in league together in something I sillily called the twisted move (a play on the Passo Torto name), but who called themselves the Clube da Encruza. More than 100,000 words later I’m still trying to make sense of the deep scene that was São Paulo in the ’00s and which I would have never heard without Soares.

She was already a star and in her 80s when the collaboration with the Clube was recorded. (Or probably in her 80s. Even she was unsure of her actual birthdate.) Like normal septuagenarian/octogenarian artists, especially singers, she’d faded into semiretirement as her voice was shot and, seemingly, her ambition diminished by accomplishments few Brazilian musicians could match. But she appeared on Cacá Machado’s 2013 album Eslavosamba, which brought together the Clube and others from the explosive São Paulo music scene. I don’t know exactly what happened behind the scenes, but that record is the first evidence I’m aware of that Mulher was on the horizon.

Fróes, along with Celso Sim, served as artistic directors of A Mulher do Fim do Mundo. (It was produced by Guilherme Kastrup, but Fróes and Sim performed many of the functions that producers take up in Anglophone contexts.) They gathered the songs and musicians from the São Paulo scene and convinced the queen of samba to sing over their tracks.

All of which makes Soares sound more passive than the final product evidences. Sure, Mulher is a Clube record, and I’ve recommended plenty of those on this blog. But compare those terrific albums to this one, and you hear that she owns it. Singing like she never has, both because her voice is shot and the music demands it, Soares provides a virtuoso performance that matches the music perfectly. Without her, the strong songs would have delivered a great album. With her it’s a transcendent one that even Anglophones couldn’t ignore.

Soares took more control of the follow-up, Deus É Mulher, which was a little more conventional but is nearly the equal of the amazing Mundo. She then made her final studio effort, the funky Planeta Fome, with a different group of musicians to remind us that she was the star.

I don’t know Soares’ earlier music as well as I should—generally she goes for straight samba, but she did show some adventurousness later in her career before her semiretirement in the ’00s—but what I hear is pretty boisterous. Her biography, which I won’t repeat here, is as vivid as her music. She lived a life of dramatic highs that made her cultural royalty and lows that kept her empathetically engaged on behalf of those—black Brazilians, women, LGBTQIA+—left behind or out in her country.

One report I read yesterday—true or apocryphal I don’t know, but I’m going with it either way—is that she was recording live music just a few days ago and ended her show with “A Mulher do Fim do Mundo”.

“I will sing until the end/Let me sing until the end/Until the end I will sing/I will sing until the end/I am the woman at the end of the world/I will, I will sing, let me sing until the end.”

Neil Young figured it was better to burn out than to fade away, but Elza showed us another path: glow incandescently to the end. And she did.