[FA Worldmusic] Jon Pareles' Article: Jorge Drexler's Performance - Town Hall NYC

[evangelinekim at att.net]

People of the World, 
Check this one.  It was one of the greatest performances solo by Jorge Drexler I've ever attended at Town Hall. I'm so happy to post this article by Jon Pareles here.  
Think that the Womex Jury might well consider Jorge Drexler solo for the next event in Sevilla.
And, hats off to Mehmet Dede, Giant Step's Director of Lifestyle Marketing & New Media, and to Carlos Gutierrez, Director of CinemaTropical.com for making it happen~!
Here's Jon Pareles' brilliant write:








March 8, 2007
Music Review | Jorge Drexler
Songs of Love and Science 
By JON PARELES
Jorge Drexler is the kind of songwriter who cheerfully explained, near the end of his concert at Town Hall on Tuesday, that he had based a song on the laws of conservation of matter and energy: Toda Se Transforma (Everything Transforms). In that song, the heat of a kiss has repercussions reaching distant galaxies. 
Subtlety went a long way for Mr. Drexlers concert. Alone onstage with a nylon-string guitar and some electronic gadgets, he had a rapt audience leaning in closely to savor his pensive, puckish songs. Mr. Drexler won an Academy Award for Al Otro Lado Del Rmo, a song in The Motorcycle Diaries, but he didnt perform it. 
Concentrating on material from his latest album, 12 Segundos de Oscuridad (Warner Music Latina), as well as a few older Latin American hits, Mr. Drexler had songs about technology, loneliness, religion, global interconnectedness and romance. One, which neatly summed up his perspective, was La Vida Es Mas Compleja de Lo Que Parece (Life Is More Complex Than It Appears). The new albums title song, which mean 12 Seconds of Darkness, is about a lighthouse, insisting that the 12 seconds in which the turning light is invisible are as crucial as the light itself. 
Mr. Drexler, who is from Uruguay, has clearly listened to North and South American peers like Paul Simon and Caetano Veloso. Along with his own songs, he played Radioheads High and Dry (reset to a South American rhythm, a milonga) and the Brazilian songwriter Arnaldo Antuness Disneylandia. Mr. Drexler plucked light, firm syncopations on his guitar and sang in the kind of high, sweet tenor that often seems to go with pop intellectualism. 
The electronics provided an understated beat or a few modest effects: a loop of his young son singing, an echo, a sustained tone. In El Pianista del Gueto de Varsovia (based on the same book as the film The Pianist), Mr. Drexler looped his voice into a keening, ghostly chorus. Audience members happily snapped their fingers or sang along  nothing too overbearing, because Mr. Drexlers fans wanted to take in every word. Mr. Drexler spoke fluent English between songs, describing them for non-Spanish-speaking listeners. 
On Mr. Drexlers albums, studio bands often move the songs toward conventional arrangements. But the solo versions were quiet revelations. The guitar parts were minimal: an arpeggio, sparse chords or just enough plucked notes to hint at a bass line. Above the guitar, Mr. Drexler crooned with supple, conversational phrasing, almost as if he were thinking out loud. He was, but with the melodic and rhythmic underpinnings of a skilled songwriter. 



Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company