Caetano Veloso
Aprenda Minha (Blue Thumb)
Currently Caetano Veloso ranks among the most internationally esteemed Brazilian artists, and deservedly so. Not only has he been an outstanding songwriter who’s built up an impressive stock of compositions over the years, but also a courageous, forward-looking artist who paid some dues when Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship. I would not, however, recommend this as a desert-island Veloso album, though it’s a good one. Recorded live at the 1998 “Livro Vivo” concert, it features Veloso performing his works and others by outstanding Brazilian composers including Jorge Ben, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque. Veloso’s a good, sweet-voiced, restrained singer with connections to the Joao Gilberto/Chet Baker tradition, but not a great one. His range and power are limited, and though his choice of tunes is astute, his versions don’t usually go much beyond charming and pleasant. That’s plenty good enough for the ticket and CD buyers who are paying for Veloso’s reputation, which owes much more to his ability as a writer than interpreter of songs. Thus, I’d rather hear someone like Milton Nascimento or a lesser-known but technically better-equipped artist sing them.
This article appears in Rick Perry.