The vibrant splendor of Aline Frazão

Angolan artist Aline Frazão needed little time to get in tune with the audience at the Matriz stage, within the framework of Festival MED in Loulé, at the last day of the event. Aline knows Portugal, where she studied and lived.

The bass gave the first chords, and Frazão continued with additional ones on the electric guitar at the beginning of “Fumo”. She followed up with other songs such as “Baúka” and “Batuku”, which together with “Fumo” were included in her album titled “Uma Canción Angolana”, released in March 2022.

With this trio of songs, the relationship between artist and audience began; complicity took place. And Aline even identified familiar faces in the audience. Another complicity, very important, was also developing: that of Aline and her musicians. There was magic in the band that made this interaction with the audience even more feasible.

Aline spoke and interacted with the audience, presenting musical genres anchored in Africa and Brazil, incorporating the flexibility of jazz and traditional music.

Thus came the fourth song “Luanda” and the artist confessed that the Angolan capital is, without a doubt, a place of many contradictions. “I lived ten years outside of Angola, then I came back. And I was living there four years ago when I made this album”, Aline told us in a brief interview in the press area of ​​the festival.

Aline continued, “I made this record from the inside, right by the time I released it, I’m already outside. They are my experiences in Luanda, a certain disenchantment, sometimes a melancholy.” The last verses of the song “Luanda” translated into English are very revealing.

You are the most beautiful balcony of God
On the other hand, your house abandoned to its fate
Praying to cheat hunger and death
And I wanted so bad to romanticize you
Muse, let me (want) to stay in you

The fifth song of the night “Sol de Novembro” moved away from the disappointment of the city and took the course of the sambista cadence. Here the flute of Diogo Duque (a protagonist all night with his trumpet) was filled with enchantment and combed the night with joy while Pri Azevedo displayed subtleties on the piano. And for an instant, piano and flute arpeggios floated in unison. The festivalgoers were immersed in Aline’s performance and exhibited their delirium. All this happened with a solid and compact rhythmic support from Mayo and Marcelo Araujo, electric bass and drums, respectively.

In the middle of the concert, she introduced the song “Luisa”, imbued at times with chacarera. Aline slightly swayed her body and moved her long arms as if drawing canvases in the air.

Four songs served as a bridge to reach “Luz foi” (The light went away), where her social commitment came to the fore once again. Truncated dreams of an Angola, incapable of facilitating a decent life for the majority. “Luz foi” is a story of disappointment and resignation, very devastating.

Although the performancen was given in a celebratory tone, it was rather cathartic and the concertgoers were very much infused with that spirit. The concert was already coming to an end and the insistence of the audience caused Aline and her band to go back on stage to perform another song. Something very unusual at the festival.

The repertoire of the night was made up mostly of her new album, seven of the twelve songs came from “Uma Canción Angolana”, her fifth album. Aline produces, composes and takes care of all the musical details of her productions. She is versatile and with a great spirit of curiosity. With love for many disciplines of art (she participated in a theater play in Italy) and a high sense of empathy and social activism.

The artist, who now resides in Berlin, confessed to us that she also drinks from the source of the singer-songwriter’s song, of which she is in love, and from the interpretive world of Hispanic-American artists.

“From Chile to Argentina, passing through Mexico, there are several genres that are very close to me, such as Chavela Vargas with the rancheras, with her melancholics, her strength, Mercedes Sosa, a lot and Violeta Parra. I am in love with flamenco singing and Cubans, of course”, said a very emotional Aline.

Aline, slender, slim, 34 years old, was like a fish to water when it came to stage dominance. She attracted the attention of the audience and thir response was immediate.

The pandemic had left many changes in the affective world, the artist told us. For this reason, she did not want to miss this opportunity of her first open-air concert to celebrate it in a big way.

“There is an urgency to embrace life, you have to dare to be happy,” said Aline, “this is an album of encounters and celebrations, of being with the public and my musicians.”

The meeting happened, finally, and it was magical. Within the hearts of those in the audience, the artist sowed a whirlwind of emotions, and the flame of hope refused to die.

(headline image: Aline Frazão – Photo by D Dornelles)