From Publishers Weekly
The Brazilian singer/songwriter most highly regarded by the First World intelligentsia, Veloso makes his U.S. publishing debut with a rambling, extremely erudite memoir focusing on his role in the late-1960s musical happening known as Tropic lia. While on the surface, Tropic lia and Veloso (often compared to Bob Dylan) paralleled the U.S. counterculture of the 1960s, the author explains the multilayered context of Brazilian politics and art that made the movement unique. From the innocence of his middle-class youth in the northern state of Bahia, to his stays in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Veloso vividly re-creates his formative years, which were immersed in French new wave cinema, progressive English rock and Brazilian letters, particularly concrete poetry. "What we wanted to do would be... closer to Godard's films," he muses. "Masculin-feminin [sic], with... its adolescent sexuality-I saw it as one more moment in our daily lives in Sao Paulo." That Veloso is well-read is not in question-he cites everyone from Wittgenstein and Proust to Deleuze and Andrew Sullivan, while at the same time introducing non-Brazilian readers to an unknown canon of authors such as poet Augusto de Campos and essayist Oswald de Andrade. If there is any complaint with the book, it is that Veloso can get caught up in a maze of sometimes unconnected ideas that obscure his lucid descriptions of the intricacies of Brazilian music and its often equally literate stars. However, this is a must for Brazilian music fans, as well as anyone interested in how the modernist age played out in South America.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Booklist
In the eyes of the world, Veloso defines, symbolizes, and spearheads contemporary Brazilian music, which continues to grow in popularity in the U.S and elsewhere. Many listeners of international pop music have only recently gotten acquainted with his work, but the truth is, he certainly is not new on the scene. Veloso's career began in the 1960s, and he is credited as one of the founders and shapers of tropicalismo, the Brazilian musical form that succeeded bossa nova. His book is not, strictly speaking, an autobiography but more a personal history of tropicalismo. Hailing from the Brazilian state of Bahia, Veloso had an arts inclination from childhood; even as he began to make a mark as a singer-songwriter, he maintained interests in writing and filmmaking. His account is important in understanding--from the inside--the socioeconomic and political as well as musical threads woven into tropicalismo. Unfortunately, Veloso's wordy and indirect prose style will limit the book's appeal to only the most devoted of his fans. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
