Interview with Brazilian singer-songwriter Joyce, from June 2003, first published on UP UnPublished 16 June 2006
By John L. Walters
It’s a good time for Brazilian music, with regular visits from Celso Fonseca, Vinicius Cantuaria, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethania, plus albums by the Ipanemas and Nacao Zumbi. And Bebel Gilberto’s album Tanto Tempo has taken up more or less permanent residence in the jazz/world music charts (in its original and remixed versions) since its release three years ago. You can even hear Brazilian music on ITV - the veteran artista Caetano Veloso is soon to be profiled on the South Bank Show.
Yet the doyen of Brazilian singer-songwriters is Joyce. She may not have stardom, ‘elder-statesman’-status, chill-out production or novelty remixes, but she has just made an album, *Just A Little Bit Crazy* (Far Out Recordings) as good as any in her long career. Furthermore, you can still catch her in intimate venues such as Manchester's Band On The Wall and Dublin's Vicar Street. And though you may see her music marketed as ‘world music’ or MPB (Musica popular brasileira), she prefers to use the term ‘creative music’, once devising the acronym MCB as a joke.
Joyce's lyrics - often with an understated political or feminist slant - are as important as the music. ‘Well, if you have to write lyrics, you'd better do it right,’ she says. ‘And say the right things. Lyrics are very meaningful in Portuguese.’ Each song begins with a chord sequence on guitar, then singing over the top. ‘Then I will work with the lyrics, and re-write and correct things and change words and find the right word to fit better. It's tricky - you have to work on the shape of the words so that they are easy and nice to sing - so you feel good when you sing them.’
She points out the variety of Brazilian rhythms and styles on which she has drawn for Just A Little Bit Crazy. ‘Brazil is a huge country, and every region has a different culture, a different way of doing its music . . . it's very rich. I could do another album like this and not repeat one single rhythm.’
The thirteen tracks feature many different moods and atmospheres, from the cool Os Medos (The Fears) to the infectious Chuvisco; from the melodic chicanery of Samba do Joyce to the gorgeous Na Paz; from the touching L'Etang to the hustling, echoplexed Galope. Yet Joyce's warm, unforced vocals pull everything together into a supremely listenable, repeatable whole.
Her Banda Maluca features Tutty Moreno (drums), producer Rodolfo Stroeter (bass) plus Teco Cardoso and Nailor Proveta on woodwinds and saxes. For the album, they were augmented by percussionist Robertinho Silva and the keyboards of Norwegian nu-jazz pioneer Bugge Wesseltoft.
‘I wanted to do a multi-cultural thing, with someone more related to European jazz than American jazz. I wanted the European touch, mixed with the African and Brazilian roots stuff.’ Fortunately Wesseltoft's touch is a light one, refracting Joyce's harmonies through delicate washes of piano, Rhodes or discreet samples, that never obscure her compositional voice. Her use of woodwinds is distinctive.
‘I use flutes and saxophones, like backing vocalists, or as if I were one more reed instrument with my voice. The human voice is the most ancient and natural instrument there is, something totally organic.’
Some new songs and arrangements have emerged from the 60 per cent of her life that she spends on the road. Visiting Dublin one June, she saw a sign that read Songs of Joyce.
‘I said “Wow, they know about me already.” I had forgotten completely about this Bloomsday (16 June), and when I looked there was picture of a guy with a moustache and a small guitar. And I remembered that when I read James Joyce's biography it said that he was a musician, too.’ Out of this came Samba do Joyce. ‘It is about an imaginary trip of James Joyce to Brazil . . . had he done it he would have met Carmen Miranda!’
Her langorous re-invention of A Hard Day's Night emerged while touring. ‘I was in Sao Paulo, just soundchecking, when I played this, and the band started to play along.’
I asked her whether she had recorded a Beatles song before. ‘I did once. On one of my albums for Verve, the American jazz label, I recorded Help! But then I was very depressed, I was in New York, working with an American record company who wanted me to change my music into something more American.’
Back in Brazil, with a more sympathetic record (UK) company, Joyce tends to record her albums in the summer, in January, working quickly with a live band. ‘I think we recorded this one in five days. We always tend to look for bigger studios so that we can have everybody playing together. It's not overproduced. I like organic music - everybody's interacting because that's what music's about and after all this is what's going to happen when we have to play live. The truth in music is the moment. Recording is like that, it's like capturing the moment and the moment is there.’ I suggest that this puts her close to jazz, although she's not really a jazz singer or player. ‘That's true,’ she muses, ‘not in the American meaning of it because I am Brazilian. But if you see jazz as a synonym for free and creative music then I am a jazz musician.’
She rejects any notion that she is a ‘star’ of Brazilian music: ‘I don't like this star situation anyway. If you get too worried about this, you don't focus on the music which is what matters. So I pay my tribute to the music and that's my boss, not the market or the record companies or anything. Music is a very demanding boss. But on the other hand it's also a very demanding lover, so it's a kind of relationship that brings a lot of happiness, a lot of joy, but strong emotions anyways.’
© 2003 John L. Walters
links
Upcoming Shows in 2006
29 June 2006, JOYCE - Bimhuis (Amsterdam, Holland) Amsterdam
1 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Birdland (Vienna, Austria) Vienna
4 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Jazz Festival (Vienne, France) Vienne
20 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Bayerischer (Munich, Germany) Munich
22 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Earagail Arts Festival Donegal
23 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Phoenix Exeter
24-26 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Ronnie Scott's London
27 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Komedia Brighton
28 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Sir Harold Hillier Gardens Southampton
29 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Pizza Express Maidstone
30 Jul 30 2006, JOYCE - Across The Tracks Festival Leeds
31 Jul 2006, JOYCE - Life Cafe/Matt & Phreds Manchester
1 Aug 2006, JOYCE - The Hub Edinburgh
3 Aug 2006, JOYCE - Trucks Theatre Hull
4 Aug 2006, JOYCE - Open Air Arena @ Mac Birmingham
5 Aug 2006, JOYCE - St.Georges Bristol
6 Aug 2006, JOYCE - Farmleigh Festival Dublin
6 Sep 2006, Joyce - Blue Note (Nagoya, Japan) Nagoya
7-10 Sep 2006, JOYCE - Blue Note (Tokyo, Japan) Tokyo
11 Sep 2006, JOYCE - Blue Note (Osaka, Japan) Oskaka
