Charlie Chaplin's “Smile" was never supposed to end up on the latest album by Portugal's musical grande dame. Mariza, a fado powerhouse, and Brazilian pianist Ivan Lins were just clowning around, having some fun with the sweet song that's been covered by everybody from Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross to Judy Garland and even Michael Jackson. That is, until they realized producer Javier Limn had been secretly recording them. When she looked up and saw tears in his eyes, she wondered what she had done. “I thought we broke something, I thought we did something wrong!" she exclaims. Sung with the kind of beautiful melancholy that only a fadista can bring, it instead ends up as a bonus track on the North American release of Terra (Four Quarters Entertainment / World Connection), a musical proclamation that Mariza has come into her own. Terra will be released Stateside on January 27, 2009, to coincide with an extensive three-month 47 city tour of North America.
Mariza calls “Smile" a gift, a “present for the kindness people have given to me through all this time, trying to understand me. It's my way of saying 'Thank you'." And audiences have certainly enjoyed watching her transform. If her debut album Fado em Mim was an effort to establish her knowledge of the fado tradition, having grown up in her father's fado house in Lisbon, her second release Fado Curvo allowed her to put her own stamp on the tradition while demonstrating that there are more ways than one to move artistically from point A to point B. Her next release, Transparente, a more intimate, classically-inspired take on fado, expressed Mariza as a more experienced and sophisticated artist.
Since then Mariza has continued to wow audiences with her powerful talent as a live performer, recording the album Concerto Em Lisboa to a hometown audience of several thousand right next to that most visual icon of fado-the sea. She has also traveled the world, selling out concert halls, from Carnegie Hall and Disney Concert Hall to London's Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House, and winning awards, including a BBC World Music Award and 2008 Latin Grammy nomination.
Now a mature performer, Mariza's Terra showcases the new voice of Portugal, a voice comfortable enough with Portuguese music to have some fun with it. On the one hand, Terra is firmly planted in tradition; tracks like “J Me Deixou" and “Rosa Branca" rejuvenate well-worn, beloved songs of the past, and “Recurso" demonstrates her lifelong commitment to fado, having discovered this hand-written, never-published poem by David Mouro-Ferreira in a fado museum.
On the other hand, nourished by her traditional roots, Mariza branches out in new directions. The first clue of this was her choice of Javier Limn, a Grammy-nominated Spanish flamenco guitarist/producer (known for his work with Paco de Lucia, Bebo & Cigala, and Buika), as producer for Terra. At first leery of having somebody with such a different musical background working with her on her new album, Mariza invited him to Portugal to play in a taverna. It was then that it hit her: “Right then I knew he was the right one for this. With him, everything was music, for music."
Collaboration with other musicians yielded musical fruits on the tracks of Terra as well. “Fronteira," a lively song discussing the real and imagined borders between Portugal and Spain, features a folkloric Portuguese rhythm from the north that is made to sound gently Cuban through the playing of Chucho Valdes, the Cuban pianist and bandleader more known for his jazz stylings, and with a battery of Portuguese percussion played by Spanish master El Piraa. “Alma de Vento" was created in the highly unconventional manner of having a guitar line first sent to her by Dominic Miller, an Argentinian-born, London-raised musician who now plays with Sting, around which she had to find the right lyrics.
Perhaps the most memorable musical melding on the album happens in the morna “Beijo de Saudade." The poem was written in misery in 1958 by one of the greatest Cape Verdean poets, B.leza, who had married a fado star, moved to Portugal, and found himself dying in a hospital bed where he saw the sea-and his tiny, faraway home island-through the window.
Joining her on the track is Tito Paris, a Cape Verdean icon, living in Lisbon who has worked before with Mariza and Cesaria Evora, among others, and who blends African influences into the Portuguese musical landscape. Half Mozambican herself, Mariza finds the collaboration on Terra deeply personal as well, saying that “Tito is putting the African part that is missing in me, and I'm putting the Portuguese part that is missing in him." Along with an elegant muted trumpet, the track is loaded with enough fado-worthy longing to create a timeless masterpiece.
Iberian splendor is captured in the track “Pequenas Verdades," a sweet tune written for Mariza by Limn himself. Wanting to retain the original Spanish flavor, they brought in Concha Buika - known simply as Buika - a meteorically rising Afro-Spanish flamenco singer.
It's easy to put a star like Mariza into a musical box. Fado, the beguiling music that helped catapult her onto the global soundscape also taunts her like a jealous lover never wanting to be neglected for too long, a curious and passionate relationship she recounts on the track “Mihn'Alma." Yet the transformed Mariza firmly stands her ground. With a new musical family surrounding her and the voice of experience and tradition behind her, she reaches out to give Portugal a new sound.
02/13/2009, Fri -- Toronto, ON, Masey Hall
02/14/2009, Sat -- Chicago, IL, Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center
02/15/2009, Sun -- Montreal, QC, Thtre Maisonneuve, Place Des Arts
02/17/2009, Tue - Quebec City, La Palais Montcalm- Salle Raoul Jobin
02/19/2009, Thu -- Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center
02/20/2009, Fri -- Fairfield, CT, Fairfield University Kelley Theatre
02/25/2009, Wed --Buffalo, NY, University of Buffalo Center for the Arts
02/27/2009, Fri -- Greenvale, NY, Long Island University Tilles Center for the Performing Arts
02/28/2009, Sat -- New York, NY, Town Hall
03/01/2009, Sun --Philadelphia, PA, Kimmel Theater, Verizon Hall
03/03/2009, Tue -- Hanover, NH, Spaulding Auditorium
03/04/2009, Wed -- Burlington, VT, Flynn Theater
03/06/2009, Fri -- Fairfax, VA, George Mason University - Center for the Arts Concert Hall
03/07/2009, Sat -- Pittsburgh, PA, Byham Theater
03/09/2009, Mon --Nashville, TN, Schermerhorn Symphony Center
03/10/2009, Tue -- Hampton, VA, The American Theatre
03/13/2009, Fri -- New Bedford, MA, Zeiterion Theatre
03/14/2009, Sat -- New Bedford, MA, Zeiterion Theatre
03/15/2009, Sun -- New London, CT, Garde Theatre
03/18/2009, Wed -- Los Angeles, CA, Walt Disney Concert Hall
03/19/2009, Thu -- Santa Barbara, CA, Lobero Theatre
03/21/2009, Sat -- Savannah, GA, Lucas Theatre
03/27/2009, Fri -- Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Au Rene Theatre
03/28/2009, Sat -- Miami, FL, Knight Concert Hall
03/29/2009, Sun -- Atlanta, GA, Robert Fest Theatre
03/31/2009, Tue -- Chapel Hill, NC, Memorial Hall
04/01/2009, Wed -- Richmond, VA, Camp Concert Hall
04/03/2009, Fri --Germantown, TN, Germantown Performing Arts Centre
04/04/2009, Sat -- Fayetteville, AR, Walton Arts Center
04/05/2009, Sun -- St. Louis, MO, Sheldon Concert Hall
04/08/2009, Wed -- Madison, WI, Wisconsin Union Theatre
04/10/2009, Fri -- Cleveland, OH, Ohio Theatre Playhouse Sq. Center
04/11/2009, Sat -- Detroit, MI, Music Hall Center for Performing Arts
04/14/2009, Tue -- West Lafayette, IN, Loeb Playhouse - Purdue University
04/15/2009, Wed -- Urbana, IL, Krannert Center
04/17/2009, Fri -- Seattle, WA, Benaroya Hall
04/18/2009, Sat -- Vancouver, BC, Concert Hall - Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
04/20/2009, Mon -- Vancouver, BC, Concert Hall - Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
04/22/2009, Wed -- Boulder, CO, Concert Hall
04/23/2009, Thu -- Santa Fe, NM, Lensic Theatre
04/25/2009, Sat -- Portland, OR, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
04/26/2009, Sun -- Eugene, OR, Silva Concert Hall
04/28/2009, Tue -- San Diego, CA, The Balboa Theatre
04/30/2009, Thu -- Napa, CA, Napa Valley Opera House
05/01/2009, Fri -- Turlock, CA, Turlock Community Theatre
05/02/2009, Sat -- San Francisco, CA, Masonic Auditorium
For more information contact All About Jazz.
