Serenata

In her most talismanic song, ‘Sodade, the late Cesaria Evora forever defined the pain of separation experienced by a generation of Cape Verdeans fleeing hunger at home for the islands of Sao Tomé and Príncipe further south. Zé Luis is old enough to have been part of that generation, relocating from Praia to Príncipe at the age of four and raised amid tropical plantations. Like Evora, his arrival on the European music scene has come late in life, and his songs ache with all the world weariness you might expect; while 60s folkie Tim Hardin merely mused on what it might be like to be a carpenter, Luis actually is one. And his voice is as lustrous as a finely worked piece of hardwood. It’s a rich, clear tenor that’s as equally adept at the deep, distended phrasing of hardcore mornas like ‘Sodadi Na Distancia’ and ‘Partida É Um Dor’ conjuring up endless leagues of Atlantic homesickness, as it is at the clipped uptempo syllables of ‘Rapacinho.’

In fact, he sounds like he’s been part of the Lusafrica roster for years. This album follows the label’s time-honoured template of pairing traditional and contemporary interpretations (including Mario Lucio’s searing ‘Mario’) to a cleaner-than-clean production. Thankfully, there are no cheesy keyboards, though again you can’t help wishing they’d captured a little more of the rawness of Cape Verdean music in the flesh, especially from a veteran like this. A promising talent, if promising is an adjective that can realistically apply to a near-sexagenarian.