These new U.S. releases find the Cape Verdean singer in different places. Mar Azul, recorded in Paris and Lisbon in 1991, is one of several albums from which Evora, 57, has acquired her glittering international reputation; Cafe Atlantico is her newest. On the earlier recording, "Mar Azul" and "Separacao" demonstrate why Evora now owns morna, a cry of overwhelming deliberation sung in Portuguese; these she delivers with a suspended, granular flow that can sometimes sound like the world's most emotional shrug. That's the basis of her singing on Cafe Atlantico, whose tracks occasionally back Evora with soaring orchestrations and fidgety bands. Steps toward related Cuban and Brazilian styles ("Carnaval de Sao Vincente") usher Evora into atypically bright moods; she's like George Jones, moving from downcast crooning to honky-tonk. But like other members of the tiny vocal elite to which she has ascended this decade, Cesaria Evora really only sings two ways: well or magnificently. (RS 818)

JAMES HUNTER

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(Posted: Aug 5, 1999)