2 posts tagged “marylee”
Last Friday Bossa Saravah played a set for Looptopia 2008, the second annual all-night art and music event in downtown Chicago. We were in the Pianoforte Studio recital hall in the historic Fine Arts Building, which is a non-air-conditioned building. It was really hot and humid, but we managed to sweat our way through. It was a 30-minute set, so it felt like we were The Ramones.
Sometimes schedules work out the way you'd like them to. We managed to see both Cyro Baptista and Beat the Donkey and Céu in the same weekend (more or less).
Cyro's band was at The Kinetic Playground on Friday, which is a great venue; clean, nice bathrooms (the men's even had an attendant!), great sound, comfy leatherette banquette sofas and hassocks. The show itself was great, and lots of fun; these guys know how to keep the humor in music! Beat the Donkey seems like one part Frank Zappa, one part Sun Ra, one part Stomp, and one part Cirque du Soleil, although there wasn't much in the way of acrobatics or martial arts at this particular show. But they had a great cavaquinho player, and even a theremin. Marylee and I pooped out around 1:45 AM, though; can't do those incredibly late nights anymore, even though I wanted to stay to the end. Lots of YouTube videos of this group, including their informal performance at the Chicago Cultural Center in September for the World Music Festival. This one includes a highlight, his song about quitting smoking. Highly recommended.
Also highly recommended is Ceu, whom we saw on Monday night at Martyr's, which is another great venue that's not too huge, not generally too crowded, and with great sound. Her sound is kind of dance-oriented, but I wouldn't call them a dance band. She has a great voice, and works with it to accentuate its strengths; this also showed in the choice of material. There are a number of videos up on YouTube of her in various settings, and her first album is very listenable. Plus, when she announced that she was going to do a song by the great Brasilian songwriter Joao Bosco (A Ronco da Cuica), we were the only ones to give a corny "awright!", which she noticed, to her surprise. After that, a number of Brasilians in the audience came by to ask if we were Brasilian, and if not how did we know Joao Bosco? Many business cards for Bossa Saravah were distributed, of course, and we met some great local Brasileiros.
