The Fado Path Listening Post 375. In the fado universe Carminho is a bright star, so it’s natural that people pay attention not only when she sings but also when she speaks about her country’s iconic music genre. “For me,” she said in a recent magazine interview,...
A Missed Beat Restored Listening Post 352. Long story short: During a university semester break in 2002, Roberta Sá successfully auditioned for Fama, a talent show on Brazil’s TV Globo. A four-week stint in the national spotlight landed her a manager, leading to her...
Light of Many Colors Listening Post 348. Lúcia de Carvalho has a friend who coaches people in writing personal testimonies designed to increase self-esteem. At the end of a project in Angola the friend asked the women farmers she had worked with to pose for a photo...
Mutual Conquest Listening Post 344. In the Age of Discovery Portugal was the starting point for explorers, but for Maja Milinković it’s the destination. Like adventurers of old, the Bosnian singer-songwriter thrives in parallel worlds, from the church where she sang...
Handle Music With Care Listening Post 340. The classic music genres emerged in seaside melting pots during the nineteenth century: In Lisbon it was fado, imbued with longing but often the kind that hurts so good; in Rio de Janeiro it was choro, commonly exuding joy...
Wave of the Present Listening Post 334. Like ripples on the water or wrinkles in time, the songs of Mónica Giraldo’s seventh album radiate gently. Water and time, in fact, are central features of the Colombian singer-songwriter’s 10-track collection Hubo un Tiempo...
Fate in the Future Listening Post 329. Fado means destiny, and those who sing Portugal’s signature music explore saudade—nostalgia for what, or who, is lost and longed for. But what is the fate of fado itself? The first post-Amália Rodrigues generation of fadistas—an...
Passion’s Arena Listening Post 325. Love is universal, the feeling that most connects people of every era—from cave dwellers to web surfers—which explains why love songs far outnumber all other kinds. And just like common folk looking for that magic spark, the...
Positions Listening Post 314. Duarte has three defining missions: “I am married to psychology but fado is my lover,” he says, referring to his clinical practice and his art. And though he has a sterling reputation as a fado singer he is also a lyricist-composer,...
The Many Sides of Time Listening Post 309. Fado and Portugal combined are like a reversible garment: Display the banner of one on the outside and the other side touches your heart. And if the music expresses the Portuguese soul, perhaps no artist expresses fado in as...
Triple Play Listening Post 296. From their name choices you might not guess that the women of Trio Bacana are French, residents of an ancient walled town in Brittany. Bacana is Brazilian Portuguese slang for “cool,” and the awesome trio’s 2017 debut album was an...
Rhythmic Pairs and Geophysics Listening Post 293. Continents separated by geological forces are knit together again by human movement. But the case of Brazilian singer-songwriter Jabu Morales is exceptional: When she landed in cosmopolitan Barcelona she entered an...
All Over the Map Listening Post 290. Travel far and discover yourself: The idea has inspired literary figures and works from Camus to Kerouac to Cloud Atlas. The twist Carla Pires offers on her fourth studio album is assimilating the distant horizon not only into...
Mother Nature’s Daughters Listening Post 283. Civilizations through the ages have paid homage to the Earth, but today planet reverence at best coexists with environmental abuse. And while the debut album by the Portuguese trio Maria Monda sounds like traditional...
Musicalité, Égalité, Sororité Listening Post 274. Music is a leading indicator of equality—or at least it offers a taste of what a better world might be like. Jazz, rock & roll, flamenco and cumbia are just a few examples of sounds that integrated cultures, even...
My BFF And/Is Me Listening Post 266. From David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust to Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce, from Philip Roth’s Zuckerman to Marcel Duchamp’s Rrose Sélavy, the alter ego has an honored place in creative art. But the Portuguese singer Cristina Branco molded...
Lost and Found Listening Post 258. Joyce’s Ulysses, Allende’s The House of the Spirits, Hugo’s Les Misérables—often a nation’s most critical and loving assessments come from its children abroad. Add to this roster DNA, the fourth album that Brazilian singer-songwriter...
Just Say the Word Listening Post 245. It defies neat translation, but you can feel it: Saudade, the Portuguese word at the intersection of longing, melancholy and nostalgia—with sometimes a measure of hope. When Jean-Marc Sauvagnargues and the five members of A Banda...
A Spin for All Seasons Listening Post 244. For better or worse the world always turns, and though the release of Roberta Sá’s Giro (Spin) predates the current global pandemic by several months, it provides a useful lens for looking back with longing and forward with...
Signs and Voices Listening Post 239. Like many artists, Maja Milinković takes advantage of unexpected opportunity and inspiration. She learned guitar in an underground shelter during the Siege of Sarajevo; it helped her stay calm and prepared her for a music career....
Men at Love Listening Post 231. Love is the magician that pulls a man out of his own hat, but how many get lucky when they try to force the alchemy? Consider the countless stories—tragic, hilarious, pathetic, triumphant—of guys who make the effort. To that list add...
Hip to the World Listening Post 230. Based in Avignon, the women of La Mòssa are polyphonic and polyglot; they have varied music backgrounds (jazz, folk, rock, roots), they tell stories old and recent, true-to-life, fanciful and surreal, describing marriage and...
Fado in Black, White and Color Listening Post 226. The song Sete Saias (Seven Skirts) describes the women of Nazaré, Portugal, who traditionally wore multiple layers on the cold beach where they waited for their husbands’ fishing boats. The only piece of small-town...
Life Without Emojis Listening Post 209. If social media represents the spotlight, what’s hidden in the shadow? Cristina Branco answers on her fifteenth album: Real life, a jumble of dream, sorrow, survival, despair, the passage and freezing of time, and every love...
A Most Democratic Album Listening Post 205. As a title, Samba Só (Samba Alone), works in only the most intimate sense: One man’s voice and guitar. But Alfredo Del-Penho—singer, composer, actor, music scholar and veteran of Rio de Janeiro’s samba houses—freely admits...
Leave No Stone Unsung Listening Post 194. In the folk tale, a hungry traveler stops in a village and asks for food. Rebuffed, he fills a pot with water from a stream, puts a stone in it and places it over a fire. Villagers intrigued by the idea of “Stone...
An Ocean of a Neighborhood Listening Post 185. The subtitle of Catarina dos Santos’ second album is “Reflections on Portuguese Identity,” a subject as big as the ocean that touches Portugal, Africa and Brazil and as small as the working-class town where she grew up....
Taking Pains Listening Post 183. Duarte is a fado purist, making no concession to other genres, just Portuguese and acoustic guitars, bass and his sensitive, expressive voice. Literally and figuratively, he takes pains to be authentic as he explores the nuances of...
Making Waves Listening Post 172. It’s easy to exaggerate a kindred connection between two people from the same city, even if they were born 150 years apart. But consider: Jules Verne, who grew up in Nantes, certainly knew that nature can send a wave thousands of miles...
Street Smart Listening Post 166. They began in struggle, illegal immigrants from Colombia and Argentina playing their music on the streets of Barcelona. Fifteen years later, Che Sudaka has performed more than 1,500 shows in 45 countries, etching a profile as...
