CD Review: Gilberto Gil - Duetos

Gilberto Gil has been a star in the Brazilian musical firmament for 4 decades and, with Duetos, he delivers an album of duets with other fine artists from Brazil's vast resevoir of superior performers. The tracks span 20 years and are influenced by lots of different types of music, making this album not something to pick if you're looking to set a certain mood - the mood changes track to track. There are some great performances here, others less inspiring.

Gilberto Gil has been a star in Brazil’s colorful musical landscape since the 1960s, starting as a bossa nova artist and moving on to become a major force in that country’s modern music, often with frequent partner Caetano Veloso. Together they were instrumental in the creation of the popular tropicalia movement within MPB.

Gil has recorded around an album a year since his 1967 debut Louvacao. So when the time came to select a compilation of duets performed with other Brazilian artists, there was plenty of material from which to choose. Duetos pairs Gil with a virtual ‘who’s who’ in Brazilian music: Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethania, Toquinho, Joao Donato, Rita Lee and more. Some of these duets are quite wonderful, others so-so.

Spanning 20 years of performances, from 1997 to 2007, there are many different types of music on this CD, from Beatles-influenced rock through R&B, disco and reggae, although they all hold dear the underlying Brazilian instrumentation and sensibility.

But that time span makes for a somewhat chaotic album since you never know what era or style you’re going to hear with the next track. I found it somewhat disconcerting. So I remade the tracks in chronological order, from earliest to latest. The new track sequence delivered an album that lets you adjust more gradually to the change in musical style and opens the door to an interesting and pleasing look at the evolution of an artist and a genre

For the curious and able,try this:
#14(1977)
#8(1980)
#12(1986)
#2(1989)
#4(1993)
#7(1994)
#11(1996)
#5(1997)
#6(2000)
#9,#13(2002)
#10(2004)
#1(2006)
#3(2007).