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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZÉVORA, Césaria(b 27 August 1941, São Vicente, Cape Verde; d there 17 December 2011) Morna singer, one of seven children; her father a violinist. Her friends called her Cize. She had a strong local following but led an unsettled life, quit music in the 1970s, was persuaded to go to France to make an album and became an international star singing her own brand of Cape Verdean morna, which is sung in Kriolu, often based on poetry. The deeply melancholic morna is the music of smoky late nights in a bar, combining African rhythmic elements with a movingly minor-key melodic style reminiscent of Portuguese fado. The traditional instruments of morna include guitar, fiddle, bass, piano, cavaquinho (a small guitar) and viola (a twelve-string guitar also found in fado); nowadays the panoply of Western popular instruments may also appear. Her records went gold in France; she was nominated for a Grammy in the USA; her first USA tour was in '95 and a world tour '96 included the London Jazz Festival: 'I stayed at home till I was 50, now I want to see the world!' She made demos, then her first album Tchintchi Roti in Lisbon, followed by a breakthrough with Le Diva aux Pieds Nus ('The Barefoot Diva') '88 on Buda Musique, Mar Uzul and Miss Perfumado '92 on Lusafrica/Melodie, Césaria on Lusafrica/ Electra Nonesuch, Cabo Verde '97 on BMG. She collaborated with Caetano Veloso on Red Hot & Rio '96, won a Grammy for her own Voz D'Amor 2003 and was joined by Veloso, Bonnie Raitt and Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés on São Vicente di Longe 2001. Veloso's lifelong collaborator, arranger and cellist Jaques Morelenbaum, arranged some of the tracks on Rogamar 2006, which was produced by her pianist Fernando 'Nando' Andrade. |