Jussara Silveira

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• Luiz Brasil (guitar)

• country:
  Brazil
• region or city:
  South America
• style(s):
  MPB
• label:
  Maianga Discos
• type:
  Solist
• gender:
  female
• instrumentation:
  vocal
• artist submitted by:
  Babel Produções Artisticas

BIO

Jussara Silveira made her debut in 1989 At Teatro Castro Alves, the largest playhouse in Bahia. In the following year she was already earning breath to show their work in the large auditorium of the Museum of Modern Art of Sao Paulo (MASP). From that moment on, she has sung in major venues in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and many other cities in Brazil and abroad.

Jussara does not act. She is what she is: a passionate singer for songs. She knows how to be cool or vigorous, how to have lightness or density, playing or getting serious. Her voice has a unique timbre, that swings to the most dramatically different circumstances of lyrics and music.

She grew up listening to classical music, at her family's home in Salvador (Bahia). Then, she attended the prestigious Academia Musica Atual (Contemporary Music Academy). She studied singing with Adriana Widmer, in the Singing Preparatory Course, at Universidade Federal da Bahia (Federal University of Bahia), and choir with the conductor Lindembergue Cardoso.

Later she studied vocal technique with Maria Helena Bezzi, in Rio.

Winner of the Premio Copene de Cultura e Arte (Art And Culture Copene Prize) (now Braskem) in Bahia, Jussara released her first solo album in 1997 (label Dubas Music / Universal). She participated in various compilations, such as the anthologycal CD "Diplomacia" a Tribute to Batatinha (EMI) and Cole Porter and George Gershwin "Cancoes, Versoes" of Carlos Renno (Label Geleia Geral/Warner)

In 1998, she released her second album, "Canoes de Caymmi" (Caymmi's Songs) (Label Dubas Music / Universal), voted by critics in Rio as one of the best albums of the year (Globo Newspaper).

In 2000, she recorded two tracks on the Portuguese guitarist Antonio Chainho's album, Lisbon - Rio, and was invited by the Lusitanian master and Maria Bethania to perform with them in Rio and Sao Paulo.

The special appearances carried on by recording seven tracks on the praised CD "Sao Paulo Rio" (Label Maianga Discos), of the composer Ze Miguel Wisnik, and later on the disc to "Perolas aos Poucos" (Maianga Discos). With Ze Miguel, she has regularly performed concerts in Brazil and abroad, along with performers such as the singer Na Ozzetti and guitarist and lyricist Arthur Nestrovski.

(In 2006, they were together in Berlin during the "Copa da Cultura" (Cup of Culture). Jussara divided the Concha Acustica of the Teatro Castro Alves in shows alongside Nana Caymmi, Maria Bethania and Alcione.

The singer's third CD, Jussara, was released in 2002 (Label Maianga Discos). In this album, she plays a repertoire that navigates the Atlantic to establish a link between the sounds of Brazil, Portugal and Angola - always focusing on the voice.

In 2006, Jussara Silveira released two albums (Label Maianga Discos): "Nobreza" (Nobility) , a duo of voice and guitar, in partnership with guitarist Luiz Brazil, and "Entre o Amor e o Mar" (Between Love and the Sea), a project awarded by Petrobras Cultural Program, which includes songs by composers established, alongside new names of Brazilian music.

Produced by Luiz Brazil, the CD has the participation of names such as Arthur Nestrovski guitarist, Leandro Braga pianist and Jorge Helder bassist, among other cutting-edge artists of our instrumental music.

Also this year, had a hard Ode Discontinua e Remota para Flauta e Oboe" (A Discontinuous and Remote Ode For Flute and Oboe) - From Ariana to Dionysius, a selection of poems by Hilda Hilst, with music by Zeca Baleiro.

After that, Jussara, Andre Mehmari (piano) and Arthur Nestrovski (guitar and lyrics) presented the concert "Viagens de Verao" (Summer Trips) in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre. They showed Brazilian versions of songs by Schubert (1797-1828) and Schumann (1810-56), reinvented as Brazilian songs, next to the music of Dorival Caymmi, Caetano Veloso and Jose Miguel Wisnik, among others.

Without making any concessions to the mainstream, Jussara Silveira keeps on singing what she believes and loves. Exposing her unvarnished truth, she has eventually become a cult artist, with guaranteed public wherever she performs. "A voice full of meanings, which will gradually disrobing," wrote Arnaldo Antunes. The opposite is also true: they are meanings loaded with voice, which she translates and transforms into a thousand and one songs.

TEXT BY LOUIS ARMSTRONG

JUSSARA SILVEIRA & LUIZ BRASIL
NOBREZA: UNITY IN DIVERSITY


When I was compiling Nu Brazil (Volume 1) in the late 90s, my aim was to reach those more thoughtful listeners who had tired of the old 'beach/bossa/bikini' diet being peddled by most major record companies. It was a formula that proved popular, leading to many more similar compilations over the following years.

I wanted to include new music from Bahia in Nu Brazil, naturally, but preferably not yet another permutation of samba-reggae or Tropicalia both of which, in my opinion, had already been milked for all they were worth.

That's when Jussara Silveira first came to my attention. I was aware that she had taken part in a collective tribute to the Bahian samba legend Batatinha, but had yet to produce a record of her own. Then a few months later, a Brazilian friend passed me a copy of Jussara's 1997 debut solo album on the Dubas record label. I was instantly captivated. Perhaps most attractive to me was the fact that she was from Bahia, but not of Bahia. She was eschewing 'obvious ' Bahian music in favour of a more discrete- yet soulful- approach to a wider repertoire. One could discern hints not only of a young Maria Bethania, but also of a timeless Nara Leao. And the real 'earcatcher' was the refreshingly broad repertoire. Bahia both old (Batatinha's Espera) and modern (Caetano's Dama do Cassino) were present. But so also were a sort of fado Napolitano (Tuze de Abreu's extraordinary Orientacao), lusophone Africa (Antonio Riserio/Roberto Mendes' Oxotocanxoxo) and carioca swing and poetry (respectively, Luiz Melodia and Chico Buarque).

And then came the less familiar material: two compositions by cult songwriters Beto Pellegrino and Ariston, one a lush ballad, the other with a caipira flavour that brought to mind Bahian cancioneiros from the interior, like Xangai, Elomar and Mao Branca; a song from the ultra-sophisticated pen of Jose Miguel Wisnik...and so on. To make matters even better, the entire project had been overseen by Luiz Brasil , someone who was already a favourite guitarist of mine, but also someone who was to play an important part in Jussara's career in the years to follow.

From the outset, then, Jussara and Luiz had set the bar formidably high: could they maintain the quality in subsequent work without the usual compromises that too many artists make after the first album?

Fortunately, the answer -in the positive- came clear and loud in subsequent work: 1998's Cancoes de Caymmi; her first Maianga album Jussara (2002); and more recently, Nobreza, another wonderful joint enterprise with Luiz Brasil which is, if anything, even more impressive than the 1997 debut and undoubtedly Jussara's most fully-realised work to date.

Nobreza cements the already substantial body of cooperacoes between Jussara and Luiz to the extent that it will be hard in future to think separately of these two most complementary of talents. Luiz, the sole accompanist throughout the thirteen selections, is a devastatingly effective player in any context, never allowing his consummate sense of colour, tempo and ornamentation to obscure the light and shade of Jussara's delicate interpretations. Rather, the voice and guitar feed from each other until one becomes unaware of the disparate qualities of the two elements.

In Nobreza, once again, we have the exemplary versatility of repertoire. The title track starts the proceedings an understated version of the beautiful Djavan composition that we first heard on the author's underrated 2004 album Luz, saved from evanescence by Jussara's haunting treatment here.

Then comes diversity in all its glorious colours: some familiar (Caetano's Os Passistas, Anibal and Eden Silva's timeless samba Rosa Maria); some almost unknown (Paulo Vanzolini's Cara Limpa, a melancholy A-minor jazz ballad that reminded me of a young Ella Fitzgerald singing from the Cole Porter songbook).

There follow a couple of international compositions that, over time, have somehow come to belong to the Brazilian canon on long leasehold Tango Russo and Nara Leao's classic verses to the Glenn Miller melody that everyone knows (Um Sonho de Verao). Both classics sound limpidly perfect in this simple voice-guitar setting.

Although considered by many to be Brazil's foremost bolero composer, Lupicinho Rodrigues' melodramatic work needs a firm hand and decisive voice to rescue it from its innate 'antique' qualities: Jussara and Luiz fulfil the task admirably with their reading of Quem Ha de Dizer, to the extent that it could almost be a hit from a recent off-off-Broadway production.

Jussara continues her close association with the pens of Beto Pellegrino and Ariston Eu Vou Te Esquecer and Ze Miguel Wisnik (Baiao de Quatro Toques). But perhaps the most characteristic touch in the album is the deconstructed nod to Salvador Carnival's old days Dodo e Osmar's Pombo Correio followed closely by an acknowledgment (and inclusion) of the new king of soteropolitano musical expression, Carlinhos Brown.

So, that's Nobreza a work of consummate skill, beauty and dedication: qualities that we have come to expect as the norm from Jussara Silveira and her partner in rhyme Luiz Brasil. And if you get the opportunity, I urge you to catch Jussara in live performance. There is a warmth and joy in her physical presence that no amount of recording-studio wizardry can replicate.
Recently there has been much heart-searching in the Brazilian press: 'Whither MPB?' The complaint is that year after year, the same old rhythms and repertoire dominate the airwaves for a majority for whom Carnaval is the be-all and end-all.

But as long as there are artists of the calibre of Jussara Silveira and Luiz Brasil, I'm personally not too worried about the future of top-quality Brazilian music-making. How about you?


JOHN ARMSTRONG, LONDON, APRIL 2010
www.latinvibe.co.uk / www.john-armstrong.co.uk

To contact this artist go to www.circusproducoes.com.br
Guto Ruocco (gutoruocco@gmail.com)
0055 11 3151.3617
0055 11 9172.4010

Links

• singer's official website
• singer's management website