Canta Cartola

Cartola was perhaps the most exhilarating of all samba songwriters. Not the kind of samba like the frantic dance of Rio de Janeiro's Carnaval, but rather the soft-tinged bittersweet song that peaked in popularity during the first half of the 20th century. Cartola is as classic as samba gets: he had that rare and beautiful ability of sounding so disarmingly simple and utterly profound. When he sings in ‘O Mundo É Um Moinho’ ‘de cada amor só herdarás o cinismo’ (from each love you will only win cynicism), it's like the universe is both revealed and condensed in a single gasp.

Listening to Cartola is such a breathtaking experience that it's a hard job for anyone to try to bring new life to his repertoire. Teresa Cristina, Caetano Veloso's protégé and one of Brazil's best contemporary samba singers, does a fairly decent job with Cartola's songs, in the live company of guitarist Carlinhos Sete Cordas. But the trouble with Cristina is that it's one thing to sound immaculate while singing ‘Alegria’ or ‘Corra e Olhe o Céu’, but quite another to match the depths that Cartola brought to the same lyrics of either song.