Two women of the world; one night. Had you heard either Mariza or Lila Downs before tonight? Did you know Lila Downs appears on the Frida soundtrack? How was the concert from your seat?
I once said in an interview that when I first heard Fado it changed the way I listen to music. After hearing Mariza live again on Sunday evening, it only reinforced that statement. What is it about the Portuguese guitar, the rhythms, the emotionally overwrought vocal style (never out of place) that grabs hold of me? That makes the memory of every lost love, every lost friend rush back into the theater and sit beside me?
Mariza is surely one of the best Fadistas on the scene but it is more than just her voice. I felt the same way listening to Misia, to Dulce Pontes and, of course, to Amalia Rodrigues.
Speaking with Mariza following her concert, I got a quick history lesson about the history of Fado -and learned of its origins in the ghettos of Lisbon, birthed by African slaves brought to Portugal in the 1800s from Brazil were they had been sent years earlier.
The music is that touches me profoundly and inexplicably. Like all great art.
Check out this interview with Mariza by Marco Werman of the BBC World..
The Portuguese fado star Mariza began her latest North American tour in Montreal last week. She has the appearance of a thoroughly modern performer. She has dyed blonde hair and a sophisticated sense of style. But when The World's Marco Werman caught up with Mariza in Boston this past weekend he discovered that she is a devout student of history. The history of fado.
The traditional music of Mozambique might seem an unexpected starting point for a singer of Portuguese fado music. But Mozambique is the birthplace of Mariza, arguably Portugal's leading fado singer today. Mozambique is also a former Portuguese colony. And on Mariza's latest CD, Transparente, she reaches out to Mozambique's traditional rhythms. It's clear that these days, Mariza takes a greater pride than ever in her African roots.
The album "Transparente" also happens to have been recorded in Brazil, with a Brazilian producer. Over the past four years, Mariza has been researching fado for a book she's writing about the music. She found that fado had its origins among Africans. But it was then transported by Portuguese sailors to Brazil, another Portuguese colony.
In the early 1800s, when Portugal lost its colony, King Joao the sixth returned home to Lisbon. He took with him from Brazil lumber, farm produce, and slaves. The slaves took with them their music -- the underpinnings of fado.
Mariza: So all those slaves they settled down in those traditional neighborhoods and they brought that music and, danced, it was very erotic. They used to dance with the bellybuttons touching. It was too erotic and the dance was forbidden. So instead of dancing they started singing. And that's why fado appeared in Lisbon. So doing this album, I think I made the triangle of the Portuguese language countries.
It's logical that Mariza would land on this concept of triangulating the history of fado music. At the same time that she is preparing a book on the history of fado, she's also been a key player in the opening of a museum in Lisbon that's dedicated to fado. She's spent her own money buying old fado sheet music and original 78 records.
And most recently, she's begun a campaign to get UNESCO to recognize the style of fado with world heritage status. Similar campaigns undertaken for tango and flamenco music have failed. But Mariza is determined to make her case to UNESCO, and is enlisting other musicians and even filmmakers in her cause.
For all of Mariza's efforts to stay connected with fado's past, she's set on keeping her interpretation of fado in the present. Mariza chose a song like "Meu Fado Meu" -- my fado, it's mine -- because it speaks to what she is doing: making fado hers, making it unique.
Mariza: When I say "Meu Fado Meu" I'm not trying to say "the fado is mine," in the sense of fado music, with all the history, 200 years of history, with everything. I'm saying "at this moment, my fado, with my sonority, with my sound." More and more I feel that.
Mariza has just begun a tour of North America, and will perform nine more dates starting tomorrow night in Hampton, Virginia.
For The World, I'm Marco Werman.
hi,
would you have any idea whether Mariza or Lila Downs will be performing live in Montreal (canada)or london (UK) any time soon?
thank you
Nora Kamal