[Albums] Eliane Elias - Around the City

Eliane Elias - Around the City
2006 | RCA Victor Records

It keeps happening that I look at a CD's cover art, read the tracks, develop some kind of "oh, it's gonna be like ____" impression, and then I listen to it and it turns out I was really off-base. I'm glad that this keeps happening. I have a keen interest in all things Brazilian, and just like some people have a fetish for all things Japanese, even super-deformed characters on keychains, I'm a big fan of Brazilian culture, especially the other-worldly music.

That is certainly driving my interest in Eliane Elias's record Around the City. It's thirteen tracks mixing her originals with Jazz arrangements of covers that are quite brilliantly put together. The opening track "Running" is so far my favorite, and it's an original. I really didn't think a cover of Bob Marley's "Jammin'" would be any good at all, but the musical performance is quite over the top, it's not to be missed.

On the other hand, I truly hope that I never hear "Oye Como Va" again, and of the various covers on this record, I'm very surprised to see this included, especially since 1) that tune has been worked to death by everybody and their mother, and 2) this is the one cover who's arrangement doesn't really add much to or do much with the original.

I'm a little surprised at how many covers are on this record (6); my guess is that this record is aimed at Jazz heads, who find it very common to pickup records that highlight performance and arrangement of standards and popular tunes, where the praise is to be found in the interpretation.

All in all, this disc is a really fun, sexy, chill listen, it makes you want to sip wine and dance slowly in some place dark, especially if you're listening to it at work while programming database code. Yus. The general impression I get from this record is of an artist who is focused on the music itself, and I think that doing bizarre covers of popular tunes is about as close as she's willing to go to selling herself as a piece of pop media, there's really no compromising the music on the other tunes for cliche pop hooks, and there's quite a bit of Brazilian Portuguese for lyrics.