Caetano Veloso: poet, philosopher, musical ambassador

Twenty-one years ago, on the Warner Brothers LP "Brasil," the great bossa nova pioneer João Gilberto introduced North Americans to three of the founders of a movement called "Tropicália": Gilberto Gil, Maria Bethânia and Caetano Veloso.

One voice literally leapt out of the grooves — that of Veloso.

Was it possible these whispering, male vowels — higher than Gilberto's, but with that same intimate, insinuating tone — could so sweetly honor the suave, dulcet moods of long-passé bossa, yet also sound so muscular, intelligent and of their own time?

It turns out it was not only possible, it was precisely the life project of this remarkable Brazilian singer/songwriter, whose work centers on the fragile dance between past and present, tradition and innovation.

Veloso has been an elusive figure for North Americans, but 10 days ago he was at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. You can hear much of what he sang there on his delectable new double CD "Live in Bahia" (Nonesuch), a sampling of songs from the last 25 years.

Contemporaneously, an English translation of Veloso's brilliant 1999 memoir, "Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil," has just been published in North America by Alfred A. Knopf.

There is nothing quite like it in North American letters.

Imagine, for a moment, if Bob Dylan had written a book explaining how Allen Ginsberg, Woody Guthrie, Charlie Chaplin, the Beatles, Federico Fellini, Robert Johnson and Johnny Cash had shaped his aesthetic and work?

Imagine it, because you're never going to see it — not in North America, where artists traditionally have feared explaining their work would compromise its mystery.

"I was afraid of that a little bit," admitted Veloso, whose high, precise speaking voice on the telephone is much like his singing, and whose thoughts emerge full-blown, like the paragraphs in his memoir. "But I was laughing at that too. This is a prejudice that we must not submit to."

A literary memoir

"Tropical Truth" is a beautiful, literary book, in which Veloso, born in 1942, describes growing up happily with his sister, Maria, in Santa Amaro, a small town outside Salvador, capital of Brazil's heavily Africanized region of Bahia. He talks about being attracted to the existentialism of Fellini's "La Strada," and its pixie-ish star, Giulietta Masina, for whom he would later write a beautiful song; hearing bossa nova for the first time; reading Jean-Paul Sartre, Fernando Pessoa, Ezra Pound, Oswald de Andrade and the concrete poet, Décio Pignatari; and seeing Glauber Rocha's revolutionary film, "Land in Anguish," which informed the whole Tropicalist project.

Veloso's first ambition was to be a filmmaker, but his talent for singing — and what he himself terms as only an "average" ability to play the guitar — overtook everything else. Because of his beautiful voice, it's tempting (and possible) to enjoy Veloso's work passively, especially if the only Portuguese words you know are você (you) and coracão (heart), and you respond to quick-footed, Afro-Brazilian rhythms.

But "Tropicália" was never about being folkloric or "authentic," it was an urbane, self-conscious critique of precisely that Panama-hat image of the tropics as regional and quaint. Musically, it was about incorporating rock, modern classical music, film scores and even electronic sounds into traditional Brazilian music. Even the name was inspired by a post-modern, 1967 installation by visual artist Hélio Oiticica. The lyrics to "Paisagem Útil," from Veloso's seminal 1968 eponymous album, feature an Andy Warholian flatness that gives the moon and a neon Esso sign equal weight in the night sky.

Thanks to Brazil's military dictatorship, such lyrics landed Veloso and Gil in jail in 1969, then sent them into 2½ years of exile, in London, where they got a dose of rock, firsthand. At San Francisco's Masonic Auditorium, it was clear why, in his book, Veloso credits Mick Jagger with inspiring his extravagant sense of performance.

Singing in front of an eight-piece band (including samba-school drums and electric cello), the slight, short singer, like a Chaplinesque marionette, used voluptuous but understated, delicately mechanical movements to accent or mime the music. Veloso is a poet but also an entertainer who gives his audience hooks they can grab, and meaning, if they want it. On the rhythmic refrain to the song, "Tropicália," as the audience sprang to its feet, waving its arms, few probably knew that those hook-y lines — "Viva a bossa-sa-sa ... viva palhoça-ça-ça-ça-ça" — were encoded references to musical and architectural styles.

Understanding Tropicália

In a blurb on the back of a recent study of Tropicália, "Brutality Garden," by Christopher Dunn (University of North Carolina Press), David Byrne comments that looking at this period in Brazil "is like an alternative version of our own past."

Indeed, understanding the Tropicalists without taking into account Brazil's relationship to the U.S. is impossible. Veloso's early dismissal, growing up, of rock 'n' roll as just another cheesy imperialist import, referenced in the wonderful song, "Rock'n'Raul," is a good example.

"Rock 'n' roll has proved itself to be something that is very important in our history," said the singer. "Before the British made that shift from very low to high, rock 'n' roll was not seriously considered. The dialogue continues."

With rap too. One of Veloso's most powerful songs in San Francisco was "Haiti," a furious diatribe against police who attacked blacks and poor whites at one of his own concerts in Salvador.

For all his seriousness, Veloso has a winning humility. At one point in "Tropical Truth," he refers, with no sign of sarcasm, to the aspect of his career that consists of "producing banal songs to compete in the market."

Not surprisingly, Veloso is ambivalent about getting famous in the U.S. "Things that you don't dream of when you're a child don't mean that much to you," he explained. "But it touches deep, important issues to me. Like the feeling of being on the periphery of the world center."

The Tropicalists' collagist approach to history, region, genre and nationality — not to mention their thoroughly contemporary idea of being at once local and global — have become as commonplace today as the nearest laptop. Clearly, Veloso was way ahead of his time. The beauty of it is that he's still out there singing, recording and writing, with many good years ahead of him.

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdebarros@seattletimes.com.