root salad Mariza
The world’s most celebrated living fado singer is about to take a break. Jon Lusk pops by to wish her well.
M
ariza looks more tired than I’ve ever seen her when we meet in the lobby of a Kensington hotel in early May, on the eve of her
last UK tour for the foreseeable future. The news that she’ll be taking an indefinite break from being the world’s leading fadista, to have her first child, has just gone public. She’s even had to cancel the last of her eight gigs promoting her new album Fado Tradicional. It’s quite some time before she manages a smile.
I begin by suggesting that after hav- ing done such an adventurous variety of takes on fado – visiting its Lusophone cousins, breaking with traditional arrange- ments and even flirting with flamenco and jazz on her last album Terra (2009) – this latest disc’s brevity and basic, stripped- down sound may have shocked a few long-term fans.
“That’s good. Sometimes it’s good to shock people.” she chuckles. “Well, I didn’t do it to shock anyone. I did it because, from my first album until this one it pass ten years, and I felt that it was time to share the memories of my neighbourhood and my parents together, where I learnt to sing fado. And I had so many fados in my memory and so many people that I would like to thank.”
One of those fados was Promete,
Jura, and the fadista who joins her on the albums’ only duet used to sing it at her parents’ taverna when she was very young.
“All the people from the neighbour- hood, from Alfama, from Mouraria, from Castelo, used to come and listen to Artur Batalha. The king of fado was Fernando Mauricio – I think I took you to see him [see fR 241] – and Artur was the prince. But he had something bad in his life, and life changed… so more than 20 years passed… Then one day I was walking in Bairro Alto and I saw him! And I went near him and said ‘Do you remember me?’ He looked at me like ‘no’.”
Years of addiction had perhaps taken their toll on Artur, but to be fair, Mariza must have looked very different as a girl, well before she discovered hair bleaching. The two artists got to know each other again, and when Mariza decided to sing one of Batalha’s signature fados, she felt she had invite him to join her. It was actu- ally Beatrice de Conceição who had first sung it but Batalha was the one that really popularised it.
“So my idea was to invite him to share that with me, but I was so afraid to ask him. You know, sometimes people who are very traditional, they don’t like to mix with the new generation.”
Despite Mariza’s fears, Artur readily accepted, although he preferred to record his part alone in the studio before she arrived to do hers.
“I said ‘OK, I’m going to respect that… so I went to the studio and I asked to hear his line – I was trying to understand what he did – and when he started singing, it was like boom! I started crying. His voice is so deep. Everything that has happened in his life is inside of his voice, it’s unbelievable.”
On each of her four previous studio albums Mariza has routinely changed her backing musicians and also picked a differ- ent – and increasingly high profile – pro- ducer. In contrast, Fado Tradicional sticks with the same bass player (Marina de Fre- itas) and acoustic guitarist (Diogo Clemente) that she used on Terra, and the latter is credited with production.
“I know Diogo more or less four years,” she explains. “If we are going to talk about basics, you know, I’m going to need someone who really knows about the tradi- tion and the base of fado. And Diogo knows. From the new generation at this moment, he is one of the most important musicians… in the tra- ditional fado. He knows everything, he knows the history. He grew up in the middle of every- body so he was the right person for this project.”
Mariza emphasises the strong sense of ‘musical comprehen- sion’ that she has with Diogo and the other two members of her current group, the other being Portuguese guitarist Ângelo Freire.
“When we are on stage we are just one person, and it’s unbe- lievable how we under- stand each other. The other day, I finished a fado and I was thinking ‘I’m going to jump this next fado to another one… and I was trying to look at the musicians to say it. And they started the fado I was
thinking of! So when we finished the con- cert, I said ‘How did you guess?’ And they said: ‘Oh, we know you very well!’”
Such rapport is evident the following night at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, even if their timing seems a little loose and some of the solos overwrought. Just before the last song, Mariza announces: “As you know, I’m going to take a little time for him,” putting her hand over her growing womb, which is thoroughly con- cealed by an especially elaborate black dress. “But I hope to return, because you are and will always be Ó Gente Da Minha Terra.” Then she walks up the steps into the audience, singing her trademark finale, in a glorious echo of her London debut in November 2002, just a hundred yards away in the tiny Purcell Room.
www.mariza.com F 19f
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