World Music Fest Report

Sara Tavares, Cibelle, Natacha Atlas
World Music Fest, Chicago
September 2006

Hosting a bevy of quirky, globally hip, international acts shimmying across various stages, the Chicago World Music Festival kickstarted its opening weekend with style. After years of struggling with immigration challenges and skimpy attendance, the eighth annual festival seems to have hit its stride. Throngs of world music fans and curious scenesters turned out for both paid and free concerts, creating a multi-culti/one-love sort of vibe over half the city. With about 80 acts scheduled for 29 venues, the fest truly promises something for everyone.

Sara Tavares
Hothouse, Chicago
Friday, September 15, 2006

Lisbon-based singer Sara Tavares stirred up the most action, transforming her late-night Hothouse performance into a jazzy, African groove party. Accompanied by a bassist from Guinea Bissau, a drummer from Angola, and a percussionist from Portugal, Tavares splashed together the rhythms and dialects of Lusophone Africa effortlessly. Reconnecting her Cape Verde roots and blending them with jazz, reggae, and Afropop, the singer offered a melodious mix of gentle melodies and bouncy beats.

Sitting on stage, playing a thumb piano, and sweetly singing in a capella, her shoulder-length locks carelessly pulled back from her face, Tavares resembled a child singing a lullaby. The mood switched quickly however, as she introduced the midtempo, jazz-influenced rhythms of “Lisboa Kuya.” “My Lisbon is a very colorful one, with all my friends from Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau. We speak Portuguese with a funny accent,” she explained about the breezy tune.

Pulling out her guitar for the peppy title tune of her latest CD, Balance (Times Square), Tavares scatted and trilled over soaring guitar riffs that drove the young crowd into a spectacle of shaking hips and tapping feet. The party continued from that point, with the singer ripping through her interpretation of a Motown tune and sliding into Bob Marley’s “Kaya” for “Bom Feeling.” Her encore, the celebratory “One Love,” threatened to transform the small HotHouse space into a sweaty juke joint. The audience refused to sit down, dancing and swaying well past the hour and a half performance, hoping for another encore from Tavares.

Cibelle
Hothouse, Chicago
Saturday, September 16, 2006

Another sold out show, another fusion of traditional and Western sounds, but Brazilian singer Cibelle’s HotHouse show presented a stark contrast to the previous night. For one thing, it started 40 minutes late, with no opening act to pump the crowd up. When Cibelle, a former model, did trounce on stage, she was wrapped in three layers of clothes, including a brown pashima that looked like a shroud. Explaining that she was cold, she began playing a string of tinkling bells, her voice wistfully echoing over them. She mostly sang with her eyes closed, disconnecting from her audience in the process.

Shaking her short, brown, tousled curls and swaying absently in a black, shapeless dress topped with a gold belt and a brown safari jacket, Cibelle presented a bizarre image.

Known for her clever fusion of bossa nova and samba rhythms with electronica, the singer-songwriter embraces the unexpected but it doesn’t always work for a live performance. As she shed a few layers of clothes, Cibelle increased the funk, playing midtempo grooves on maracas and guitar. “Madman’s Song” featured electronic undertones and echoes as she sang into two mics but the ambient layers didn’t inspire dancing or even nodding. After playing “City People,” a drowsy ode to London that morphs into a funk-infused tune, she finally noticed that nobody was moving.

“You guys are so silent all the time,” she announced as she ran around swinging her arms to stir up the energy. It didn’t work. Playing a percussion instrument and lilting a bossa nova tune in Portuguese over electronic beats, the audience just watched her, not sure what they were supposed to do. Her three bandmates didn’t help matters as they kept their heads down, never making eye contact with the audience and showing a limited amount of animation.

You can’t accuse Cibelle of not being animated, however. She played her guitar with abandon, swirled around various music makers, and traipsed across the stage like a kid in her playroom. Her voice revealed the soul of bossa nova as well as traces of jazz and she creates interesting layers of sound. It’s just that it maybe better suited to background ambiance rather than an hour-long show.

Natacha Atlas
Millennium Park, Chicago
Monday, September 18, 2006

With her multi-ethnic heritage and her bold mix of traditional genres, North African/Middle Eastern/Belgium-born singer Natacha Atlas attracts a diverse fanbase. Her show at Millennium Park reflected this, with crowds of middle-aged fans and American belly dancers yelling out tongue-twirling Arabic whistles. Backed by an acoustic ensemble of violin, cello, viola, bass, and piano, it was a more sedate performance than what Atlas typically gives but it was enthralling nonetheless.

Appearing in her Arabic chic of turquoise headwrap, gold coins dripping over her forehead, and a sapphire and carnelian-colored caftan edged in gold, she sat behind a music stand, tapping her feet as the ensemble played. Diving into classical Arabic poems, her vocals floated and expanded over the syncopating rhythms. Belting out the classic Between You And Me,” she commanded the stage, even as she sat, supplying hand gestures for translation.

Her introduction of the anti-war “He Hesitated” brought screams of approval and her sinewy voice dripped through the melancholy ballad. Atlas’ music director explained they had been instructed on the origins of the next tune at the Old Town School Of Folk Music, “a temple of folkiness.” “Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair,” popularized by Nina Simone, became a Middle Eastern love song in Atlas’ hands. Stretching out the notes and changing the interpretation, it sounded more like an Egyptian pop tune than the Appalachia classic that it is.

Toward the end of the one-hour show, Atlas started dancing in her seat, unable to resist the spirited rhythms. Finally, for the last tune, she rose up and shifted and gyrated her hips in a languorous bellydance. Grabbing the mic, she sang as she danced with her hands and her hips, completing the show of North African and Middle Eastern cultural influences.

— Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly