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Concert Report: Jacinta

The show was supposed to be a Portugese female vocalist doing a tribute to Bessie Smith and doing some more traditional Portugese and Brazilian songs. Not something you see every day. She had a backup band of a trumpeter, upright bass player, and pianist. They were good, except the trumpet player, who couldn't always keep up. She started the show with "My Funny Valentine", a song that was ruined for me to take seriously by hearing it so many times on Ron Cuzner's jazz show way back in high school. But I felt like I was at a real jazz concert! She then went into a bunch of Bessie Smith songs, and I really enjoyed the songs but her voice was not right for them. I'm not sure if some of it was just due to my preconceptions, but her voice was very clean and not very emotional, and I think the songs would have benefitted from some more texture and emotion. The friend I went with also commented that she never really changed the intensity of her voice, which I think led to the emotionless feeling. It made me really want to see a good blues singer, cause I really like blues songs. After the intermission she played a few portugese songs, which seemed to fit her voice better but were not as interesting to me. Then she played a few american swing songs, which I enjoyed more, and she did some nice scatting across parts of them. At one point she and the trumpeter went back and forth, which was cool, although the trumpet solos kept fading into nothing. He should have gone for it! The crowd was pretty responsive, though, which was nice. They even got an encore, although it turned out to be the "These are a few of my favorite things" song from The Sound of Music, which really was the wrong direction for an encore I felt. So we left in the middle of it after putting some money in the tip jar. Overall, a nice concert, especially one with no cover, but it didn't really all come together. I did also learn that Espresso Garden has good sandwiches, though.