When Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Évora first came to Europe, in the late 1980s, she had abandoned her performing career a decade earlier. Then 45, she had never made a professional recording. Now she is a Grammy-nominated recording artist in demand for concert appearances all over the world. Her current tour in support of her new São Vicente (Nonesuch) will bring her to the Zeiterion Theater tonight (Thursday, November 8).

Back then, Évora was a diamond in the rough, a self-possessed performer with a deep, velvety voice that could express nostalgia without sentimentality, or joy that seemed to rise triumphantly from a sea of melancholy. But she's polished up exceedingly well, in part because she invested unusual trust and responsibility in her producer, José da Silva. "The ideas come from him," she explains through a translator over the phone from Arcata, California. "We work very well together. I almost always go with the songs that he chooses for me. We listen together, and if I like it, I record it. If I don't, I don't."

Évora is a notoriously reluctant interview subject, and on this occasion she lives up to her reputation. When I ask about songs on São Vicente, she says, in effect: "I didn't write them. Why don't you ask the composers?" This lack of pretension is refreshing, and of a piece with an artist who performs on stage as if she were in her kitchen back home. When band members take solos, she sets her mike on the table (thump!), sits down, lights up a cigarette, and sips milk possibly spiked with whiskey. Years ago, she did tell me how as a little girl she sat on her musician father's knee and sang. His death when she was seven years old was a tragedy that shaped her life, but not the only one. Her decision to stop singing at 34 came after the death of one of her own children.

Sadness is the key theme in Évora's signature song form, the morna, a lyrical, melancholy genre that reflects Cape Verde's dark history. The scarcely arable archipelago some 350 miles off the coast of Senegal has known poverty, starvation, brutal governance, and slavery since the Portuguese discovered it uninhabited in 1456. Most of the world's Cape Verdeans live elsewhere these days, one reason that Évora finds such a warm welcome as she travels the world. In 1987, she performed some of her first international concerts in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, where Cape Verdean communities date back to the heyday of the whaling industry some 100 years ago. With a little prodding, she concedes to a warm spot for the region but adds, "Believe it or not, everywhere we go, we always find Cape Verdeans. We have half a million living in Cape Verde, and more than a million living abroad."

São Vicente builds upon her Grammy-nominated 1999 release Café Atlántico (Nonesuch), for which she invited a number of musicians and merged Cape Verdean songs with Cuban and Brazilian music. The new album takes this idea to the next level. "Linda Mimosa" fits her gorgeous vocal not just to Cuban music but to the rich textures and rhythms of Orquesta Aragón, one of the most venerable Cuban bands still in action. The track is a knockout. On "Regresso," a morna in praise of rain, she sings with Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso. "I met Caetano in '94, when I went to São Paulo to sing. He was at my show, and I liked him a lot. After that, we worked together on a song for Red Hot in Rio. Since then, we are always finding each other on TV shows, festivals, in different countries. We are good friends now."

On another noteworthy collaboration, "Crepuscular Solidão," Évora sings call-and-response lines with Bonnie Raitt. Raitt first shadows and then expands upon Évora's phrasing, but the sense of intimacy is deceptive. "It was not my idea," Évora explains. "When my producer spoke to me about that, I didn't know her [Raitt]. He introduced me to her music and I liked it, so I decided to do it. We didn't meet during the recording. She recorded her voice in the States and I recorded my voice in France." Évora does allow she's quite pleased with how the song turned out.

These collaborations give São Vicente freshness and variety without sacrificing the charms of earlier recordings. The compositions are consistently good, and though she did not choose them, Évora sings them spectacularly. She is a master of vocal interpretation and a sincere, engaging performer. As for the rest of it, you'll have to talk to her producer.

Cesaria Évora performs at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford, Massachusetts, tonight (Thursday, November 8). Call (508) 994-2900.

Issue Date: November 9 - 15, 2001