Album of the day: Caetano Veloso, “Livro”

Caetano Veloso
“Book” (Cd Mercury 536584-2)

It is impossible not to be enchanted by the voice of Caetano Veloso; it is easier to be disappointed by his records because of a rather inconsistent pen in terms of composition, which alternates splendid songs with others that are much more botched and not free from lapses. In his vast discography there is room for some of the most beautiful Brazilian songs ever written but there is no lack of dull and repetitive records, even if the large group of admirers of this artist often considers anything he delivers to the press as a masterpiece and considers it sacrilegious to question every note of his.

Maybe it’s like that, but the only album of his that satisfies me completely in terms of compositional quality is “Livro”, released in 1997; I certainly don’t want to deny the beauty of albums like “Circulado”, “Estrangeiro”, “Noites Do Norte” or the live album with Chico Buarque, but in “Livro” Caetano’s inspiration finally and totally reaches the beauty of his singing.
In over an hour of music you will not find a single piece of lower quality, they are all beautiful songs that Veloso has arranged together with his faithful collaborator Jacques Morelembaum, covering them in a thousand colors, with continuous timbric and rhythmic surprises that
they always manage to surprise the listener.

Perfect melodies like “Os passistas”, “Manhatã”, “Vocè è Minha” and “Minha Voz, Minha Vida” completely sum up Caetano’s varied artistic experience, bringing together stylistic elements of Bossa Nova, MPB and Tropicalista style; his son Moreno gives him a witty musical bonbon with “How Beautiful Could a Being Be” and Caetano seems to have a lot of fun overlapping apparently antithetical musical elements like Samba and dodecaphony in the bizarre melting pot of “Doideca”, which
pays homage to the stylistic extravagance of colleague Tom Zè.

There is also a tender homage to Brazil’s musical past, with a magnificent cover of “Na Baixa do Sapatero” by Ary Barroso, which has nothing to envy of the historic recording by João Gilberto (as always in Caetano’s records, memory and contemporaneity travel inextricably intertwined); the desperate “O Navio Negreiro” sees the participation of Maria Bethânia and Carlihnos Brown, while in the violent invective of “Não Enche” we have the opportunity to appreciate the most corrosive and sarcastic side of his lyrics, always rich in incisive images.

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical subjects.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: Un disco per ogni giorno dell’anno” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.