|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
| The New York Times November 13, 1995 One Peruvian Volce that Blends Two Cultures Susana Baca at Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity by Peter Watrous Everything about Susana Baca’s show on Saturday night was so restrained that the slightest movement — emotional, rhythmic or melodic — became a large gesture. Ms. Baca, a Peruvian singer of African descent, proves that the global communication network hasn’t discovered everyone; until the release this year of Afro-Peruvian Classics: Thee Soul of Black Peru (Luaka Bop), which features one track by the fortysomething Ms. Baca, she was virtually unknown outside Peru. That has changed. On Saturday night in Brooklyn, she sold out her show. She was backed by just two percussionists and a bassist, and the four of them quietly ambled through a set of tunes, some of them dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, generated by black culture in Peru. One took the point of view of a slave grinding sugar cane; others celebrated the culture. African words popped up, and in one piece Ms. Baca sang about a black Christ. In their simplicity, the songs seemed like fragments of a lost culture, truncated messages from the past. In many ways, Ms. Baca and her group are a Peruvian version of Sweet Honey in the Rock. She has taken folk material and interpreted it through an art tradition; it gives the music a different type of beauty. On tune after tune, Ms. Baca’s gorgeous voice, with its intimations of fragility, repeated phrases with a tranquillity that bordered on stillness. The percussionists, using complicated, loping patterns, made a rhythmic mesh behind her that grew solid and intense, only to slip away into languor. Although the African-Peruvian tradition may have created Ms. Baca, her cool, distinct voice, as beautiful as any working in pop, has the strength to create its own tradition. |
 [an error occurred while processing this directive] |