Marisa Monte's concert at downtown's Gusman Center for the Performing Arts on Friday night was a lesson in just how good not only Brazilian music, but pop music can be, where the loveliest melodies and most intoxicating rhythms merged effortlessly with rigorously intelligent musicianship.
Tall and slim, long black hair streaming down her long black dress, Monte seemed an elegant sorceress, conjuring up musical magic with a wave of her supple arms. She has the gorgeously clear, silvery voice typical of many female Brazilian singers, but with a full, rounded tone and exquisite control.
Monte shapes the songs with such sensuous care that they feel almost tangible, as if she's sculpting them out of the air. This might be due in part to her classical voice training, but it feels completely natural -- music seems to flow through her. Even the throaty way she chanted ''One, two, three'' to launch a song melted you into your seat.
It was goose-bump inducingly good.
Kudos to the Rhythm Foundation, which presented both Monte and Cuban bandleader/pianist Bebo Valdes last month, for two of the best concerts of the fall season.
One of Brazil's most popular artists, Monte is also an accomplished composer and producer, and the production (for which she was musical director and shared stage direction) had the elegant intelligence of her music.
Art Director Claudio Corres and scenographer Walter Balginago created glowing white screens that opened and closed behind and on either side of Monte and her band, so that the stage seemed to expand into luminous space, or contract into intimate darkness. Simple, striking effects, like a glowing orb for a song about the night, or red paper cubes fluttering in a bird cage for Meu can a rio (My canary), and Ralph Strelow's dramatic lighting, intensified the dreamy theatrical atmosphere.
Monte spoke mostly in English to the adoring, largely Brazilian crowd that packed the theater, smiling sweetly at the sporadic shouts of ''I love you!
'' and bursts of applause, reigning gently over the stage whether playing guitar or swaying in front of her band. Nine musicians on bass, electric and acoustic guitars (including the tiny, tinkling Brazilian cavaquinho) cello, violin, keyboards, drums, percussion, trumpet and fluegelhorn -- a complex mini-orchestra perfectly woven into a gorgeous, intricate tapestry of sound.
The songs ranged from selections off Monte's two just released CDs, Infinito particular and Universo ao meu redor; from Tribalistas, the hit 2003 recording she made with Carlinhos Brown and Arnaldo Antunes, and others from her over 15 years of music making.
Many were about love lost or longed for, full of sentiment, but not the heart-ripping passion of Latin-American love songs in Spanish. Instead Monte summoned emotion gracefully, lightly, as if both pain and bliss were as delicious as the music.
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