Uncovering B.Leza - Cesaria Evora's songwriter
Few people had heard of Cabo Verde, an arc of islands off the coast of Senegal, until Cesaria Evora put them on the map. B. Leza is one of the most important composers in the history of Cabo Verde, and anyone who knows Cesaria Evora's discography knows that many of the songs that made her a success were written by him. We interview Glaucia Nogueira, a Brazilian journalist and anthropologist, whose book 'The Time of B.Leza' has been translated into English by Graham Douglas.
B. Leza is the artistic name of Francisco Xavier da Cruz (1905- 1958), and in addition to his extensive musical work, he also wrote poetry and texts about Cabo Verde and its culture. Some previously unknown recordings of him singing were found last year and are expected to be published by Tradison in Portugal.
Transatlantic voyages had been fertilising musical connections between the Americas and Africa throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries. Brazil and Cabo Verde exchanged important musical influences, and European dance styles became part of Cabo Verdean tradition after picking up Brazilian influences on their way.
In 1997 the Brazilian researcher and journalist, Glaucia Nogueira began a long bibliographical and disco-graphical investigation, complemented with hundreds of interviews, among Cabo-Verdean communities in France, Portugal, The Netherlands and in Cabo Verde, where she lived from 2002 to 2014.
The result - Cabo Verde and its Music - a Dictionary of Personalities, published in 2016, traces the biographies and discographies of musicians, singers, and other personalities who make up the musical universe of Cabo Verde.
Using material collected over a period of more than 20 years, a virtual museum is in construction, to share an extensive collection including texts and photos, but also videos, press cuttings, concert posters, disc covers and interviews. Many of these items require preparative technical work to permit them to be used in a virtual museum.
The full interview was previously published in the Latinolife online newspaper in 2020, and can be read in full, with links and images, here:
https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/uncovering-bleza-cesaria-evoras-songwriter