Especial Ivete, Gil, Caetano

Whilst most lovers of Brazilian music will be familiar with tropicalia founders Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, fewer will know of their fellow Bahian, Ivete Sangalo. This is despite her probably being the country’s biggest singing star. Hordes of Brazilian teenagers pack out football stadiums throughout the country to hear her pounding, Bahian axé pop, and her brilliant white teeth and flattened abs grace giant hoardings and favela bar beer posters all over Brazil.

All three come together on this live recording, with Ivete resolutely taking centre-stage. The set mixes high-octane pop and sickly saccharine versions of Brazilian standards laced with strings, by the likes of Chico Buarque, Herbert Vianna and Gil and Caetano themselves. The band is consummate, the production slick and Ivete is as professional and well-practiced as ever. Her voice is in fine fettle on numbers like ‘Olhos Nos Olhos’, where she seems to be reinventing herself for an older generation as a singer in the Elis Regina mould rather than a glitzy pop star.

But Gil and Caetano sound tired and uninterested throughout. Gil sounds like he thought twice about turning up at all. His voice is limp and weak even on ‘Dom De Iludir’ and even on ‘Drão’, his own song, which he duets with Caetano. And Caetano seems almost inaudible for much of the show, struggling even to croon on tracks like ‘O Meu Amor’. And even though it’s difficult to see much of an audience for this lacklustre live show outside of Brazil, it’s Ivete and not the Tropicalistas who sound best on this CD.