Documents from Gilberto Gil's Private Archive

The Miami Herald www.herald.com MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1997 GILBERTO GIL: Claimed his right to world culture. Gil's magic transforms the Gusman By FERNANDO GONZALEZ Herald Arts Writer Brazilian singer and songwriter Gilberto Gil has been the proto- type for the global pop star for some time - fluid in several musical languages, steeped in local traditions but with a univer- sal outlook, rootsy and high tech. Even REVIEW his stage persona and demeanor feels both familiar and faintly exotic. But the United States, for one, is not ready to concede pop supremacy and fully embrace a non-English speaking performer so Gil, 55, has not become a global icon and probably never will. That's our loss. Friday at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, backed by a solid six-piece band, he drew from Afro Brazilian traditions (spreading a feast of sambas, baiaos, a hint of maracatus). Anglo pop and Jamaican ska and reggae. He paid tribute to Brazil- ian music masters Dorival Caymmi and Antonio Carlos Jobim but also Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley. He casually claimed his right to world culture, reinterpreting Wonder's The Secret Life of Plants as a bossa nova, but also setting Girl From Ipanema, the shorthand for bossa nova, to a slow, sensual reggae backbeat. Simple pleasures He did this while contemplat- ing quantum physics and the simple pleasu: of eating crabs, science and great loves, earthly poverty and the mysterious pow- ers of African gods. Most remarkable, it all flowed seemingly effortlessly. It was also entertaining. Gil paced the two-hour show smartly, stringing several of the more muted, thoughtful, new songs early on, then doubling back to reach for some of his older, more familiar material Expresso 2222. Aquele Abraco and the irresistible singalong Palco - mix in some reggae, gain momentum and end on a high note with the audience on its feet. Roamed the stage An unsentimental singer with a lean but expressive tenor and a startling falsetto, smooth as glass, Gil barely addressed the audi- ence. Instead, he roamed the stage, play-acted some of the lyr- ics and at one point, discovered the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos in the audi- ence and coaxed him onstage for a song. The encounter, and the sparks it produced, were perfectly fit- ting. Here was a chance encoun- ter of two old friends passing through a strange place in a strange land, turning it into an old neighborhood joint. For that moment, the Gusman Center was somewhere in Bahia.