Live review: Seu Jorge and his band Almaz at Club Nokia
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A charismatic pop chameleon and his band subtly but decisively transform cover tunes.
For Brazilian musicians, imitation is not only the sincerest form of flattery but sometimes of creativity as well.
Tropicália founders Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Tom Zé gladly acknowledged the Beatles’ influence on their own ‘60s samba-flower power fusion movement. Contemporary Brazilian talents such as the smoky-voiced chanteuse Céu, never tire of citing the impact of American jazz and rhythm and blues greats (as well as of Brazilian masters Tom Jobim and João Gilberto) on their artistry. The point with music-making, after all, isn’t where you find it but where you take it.
So when the charismatic pop chameleon Seu Jorge turned up with his band Almaz at Club Nokia on Saturday night to play a set mainly consisting of exquisitely chilled cover tunes from his latest album, he wasn’t indulging in nostalgic reveries. He was demonstrating how songs forever locked in our mental jukeboxes can be subtly but decisively transformed by a suggestive bass line, a spooky dub makeover, a shotgun blast of anguished emotion.
At Nokia, Jorge and Almaz, whose members include the smolderingly inventive guitarist Lucio Maia, drummer Pupillo (one name, like a soccer star) and Antonio Pinto on bass, were wrapping up a multi-city North American tour highlighting the project’s new self-titled album. Stripping down songs like Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” to their rhythmic and melodic components, then thoughtfully reassembling them, the band leans toward a do-it-yourself, scrapyard aesthetic that Jorge perhaps gleaned from his rough upbringing in a favela in Rio de Janeiro state.
On “The Model,” Jorge’s warm, vulnerable delivery humanized the German proto-techno band Kraftwerk’s chilly, robotic ode to a runway goddess. The odd pairing of his reverb-laden vocals with haunting James Bond-style surfer-guitar licks turned the tune into a wistfully erotic-obsessive plea to an elusive beauty.
Similarly, Jorge’s soulful stroking of Roy Ayers’ über-mellow “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” produced the effect of watching a musician wade waist-deep into a groove while simultaneously standing apart, deconstructing it. Both in English and Portuguese, Jorge’s voice can gambol through strawberry fields of spiritual ecstasy, à la Stevie Wonder (one of Jorge’s idols), and roar with a lustful aggression that evokes Jimi Hendrix.
On a cover of Jorge Ben‘s “Errare Humanum Est,” he broke up his growly baritone-tenor with unexpected pauses and emphases that delicately nudged the lyrics’ meanings in new directions. Now and then, Jorge and Almaz shattered the evening’s blissful trances with a belter like “Pai Joao” (which they reprised in encore) or the jaunty samba-rock hit “Carolina.” After limiting himself to vocals and an occasional flute solo, Jorge finally picked up a guitar and even, briefly, a trumpet, on a generous six-tune encore that included his touching, otherworldly cover of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”
Jorge, in fact, first came to many Americans’ attention as an actor in films such as “City of God” and “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” in which he played a one-man Greek chorus singing Bowie covers throughout the film. Better to think of him, though, as a seeker-scavenger who fell to Earth and, thankfully, decided to stay awhile.
-- Reed Johnson
