Documents from Gilberto Gil's Private Archive

Brazilian pop stars to perform COSTA, FROM 1G that caught people's attention." Costa is one of the top three female pop stars in Brazil, according to Charles Perrone, professor of Portuguese and Bra- zilian culture at the University of Florida, and author of Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song. "She's always singing happening stuff," Perrone said. "She's been associated with the cutting edge of pop for the last 30 years." Costa thinks tropicalismo cre- ated a sensation "because it was against the mainstream, it was against the status quo. In musical arms it was against the machin- ery.... Poetically speaking it was a whole other kind of expres- sion." Although the movement lasted only a year, it continues to be rel- evant. "It's such an appropriate metaphor for what it's like to do new music in Brazil," says Per- rone. "You're surrounded by an archaic and backwards culture, but there are also all these techni- cal and modern influences. There are all these overlays and contra- dictions, and those things are as intense as ever. The metaphor of what they were doing, moderniz- ing the jungle, gets recycled into ther musics." Costa herself, with her sultry, lusive image, has kept a kind of conic status while wheeling hrough the gamut of Brazilian op. And her bright, silvery oice, with its soaring highs, moky lows and subtle rhythmic lay (Jon Pareles of The New ork Times said it "blithely cfies every law of physics"), has ome to represent a quintessen- ally Brazilian sound. Much of Costa's reputation stems from her association with Brazil's greatest pop composers; particularly Gil and Veloso, but also artists like Milton Nasci- mento, Chico Buraque, Jorge Ben Jor, Djavan and Joao Gil- berto. Although she says she picks them by instinct, her choices show unerring musical sense. "I choose songs that touch me deep inside at the particular moment that I listen to the song," she said. "If I like it and it touches me, I sing it. Her latest record, O Sorriso do Gato de Alice (The Smile of Alice's Cat), is named for a line in a song written for her by Veloso in which he compares her to the smile of the Cheshire Cat, myste- rious, untouchable, beckoning. Saturday's concert celebrates a generation of artists that con- tinue to be both commercially successful and musically adven- turous. Last year Gil and Veloso released an album commemorat- ing 25 years of tropicalismo, but they continually attract new lis- teners, says Costa, because they "are concerned with recycling their images and their songs to stay modern." So is Costa. And at a recent concert at a club in Rio, she says, the young audience happily sang all her hits of the '60s to her. Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Jach Glea- son Theater, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Tickets are $25 and $35, with special Gold Circle seats $75, avallable through Ticketmaster (523-3309 in Broward, 358-5885 in Dade and [407) 839-3900 in Palm Beach) or the Jackie Gleason box office, For information call 237-30 10.