|
The New York Observer
Sunday, March 20, 2000
Susana Baca reinvents a ŌshadowÕ tradition in her own cool image and
Craig StreetÕs clean, atmospheric production strengthens and refines her
approach.
Peruvian Singer Dances In Shadows
By JOSEPH HOOPER
The title of Peruvian singer Susana
BacaÕs excellent new album, Eco de Sombras (Echo of Shadows), suggests
that sheÕs singing about something that somehow doesnÕt really exist.
That would be the music and culture of black Peru. African slaves followed
hard upon the heels of PeruÕs Spanish conquerors in the 1500Õs, but, contrary
to the experience of Brazil and Cuba, those two hotbeds of Afro-European
musical fusion, the slaves were deliberately drawn from disparate African
cultures and then dispersed throughout the country. They were numerically
dwarfed not only by the white colonists but also by the indigenous Andean
peoples who gave us wool ponchos, little guitars and those folkloric musical
groups that play in the New York subway system. Post-slavery, Afro-Peruvians
melted into PeruÕs mixed-race society, doing their best to "disappear"
as a distinct race and culture. Cue the panpipes for the entrance of Ms.
Baca and world-music maven David Byrne.
A decade ago, Ms. Baca, now in her early
50Õs, wasnÕt a complete unknown in her home countryŃthere had been a vogue
for Afro-Peruvian music in the late 60Õs and 70Õs. But as someone who
was devoted to the slow sway of the traditional rhythms like the lando
and the vals (waltz) instead of the more uptempo, dance-oriented stuff,
she certainly flirted with invisibility. That is until Mr. BryneÕs Spanish
teacher, an Argentine musician, played him a video of Ms. Baca. Suitably
enchanted, Mr. Byrne set about organizing an anthology of Afro-Peruvian
music for his Luaka Bop label that came out in 1995, The Soul of Black
Peru, that included one standout Baca cut. Two years later, he released
the eponymous Susana Baca, the singerÕs first commercial release anywhere.
And now we have her second album, Eco de Sombras, produced by Craig Street,
the mastermind behind Cassandra WilsonÕs crossover pop success, with guest
contributions by "downtown" New York jazzers, electric guitarist Marc
Ribot and acoustic bassist Greg Cohen.
At this point (cue those little Andean guitars),
it would be customary to decry the slick, homogenizing influence of the
hepcat First World on delicate Third World talent that withers away from
its nourishing indigenous roots. But thatÕs manifestly not the case here.
Ms. Baca is reinventing a "shadow" tradition in her own cool image, and
Mr. Street and companyÕs clean, atmospheric production only serves to
refine and strengthen her approach. Ms. Baca articulates precisely in
a clear, light alto voice; in matters of lyric content, she favors fragments
of poetry by her Peruvian contemporaries. In short, a highfalutin cabaret
air sometimes attaches to her work (a young, more restrained Edith Piaf
singing the love poems of Pablo Neruda gives you a rough picture), and
on the first album it can mix oddly with folkloric chorus chants and percussive
flourishes. (On the song "Heces," lyrics that translate, "And I remember/
The cruel caverns of my ingratitude/ A block of ice above your poppy flower,"
would be a bit much even in French.)
Eco de Sombras does a much better job of
sorting out the singerÕs persona and her material. On the opening track,
"De Los Amores," the girlish drama of Ms. BacaÕs voice is a perfect match
for a Javier Lazo lyric that would do Neruda proud: "I cry in the usual
place/ I fill myself with your sweat." The succeeding nine cuts offer
an artful tour of the explicitly Afro-Peruvian, borrowings from Cuba and
Brazil to fill in the considerable musical gaps, and a touch, mercifully
just a touch, of an Andean sadness heard in Mr. StreetÕs deployment of
the panpipes. Especially deft is the way Ms. Baca shifts back and forth
from the ardent self-involvement of the romantic ballads to a harder,
more impersonal voice she uses on traditional-sounding tunes like "El
Mayoral" and "Panalivio/Zancudito" that recall the miserable lot of PeruÕs
African slaves.
Here, I think the singer is blessed to have
been raised in the Spanish language, which sounds equally stirring in
the bedroom or on the chain gang. On the song "La Macorina" (no, not "The
Macarena"), Ms. Baca has it both ways, sublimely so, commanding her lover
to touch her in certain places ("Ponme la mano aqu’, Macorina") like sheÕs
an outgunned Republican leading the troops against Francisco Franco in
the Spanish Civil War.
|
