April 25 Vallejo/Vacaville Arts and Entertainment Source: Singer Ramana Vieira showcases more than contemporary fado

Vacaville-based singer and pianist Ramalna Vieira specializes in fado, the traditional Portuguese folk music likened to American blues, but lately she and her backing quartet expanded their song list in surprising ways.

In the past six months, the ensemble’s repertoire, while still showcasing contemporary fado, has folded in songs to reflect “Basia to Sade meets Santana meets Portugal,” she wrote in an email to The Reporter.

This new tapestry of sounds will be in full effect from 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday in the Speakeasy at Makse Restaurant on Main Street in downtown Vacaville.

She called the restaurant venue an “intimate lounge where folks can get an up close and intimate encounter with our band and just like the dueling pianos that performs regular at Makse Speakeasy, we, too, as a band, can honor a few musical requests, so come down and try us,” she added.

She recalled a show that changed the band’s musical direction — at least for a moment in time that continues today.

“I remember once while on tour in Oregon with our Portuguese fado show someone screamed, ‘Freebird!’ (the Lynyrd Skynyrd rock classic) and my guitarist who is very talented and versatile huddled with our band for a few seconds and we turned around and delivered the impromptu request of ‘Freebird,’” she said.

“The rest of the night of that concert we had everybody at the edge of their seats. I am sure they had no idea that we are not a ‘one trick pony’ just like the song by Portuguese Canadian pop artist Nelly Furtado who wrote the hit, ‘I am like a bird.’ My band is not a one trick pony and I am very proud of that aspect of us,” Vieira added.

Besides Vieira on vocals and piano, the backing band is Vincent Tolliver on viola, violin and mandolin; Jeff Furtado on guitarra (Portuguese guitar) and guitar; David Parker on bass and keyboards; and Joe Sam on drums.

Performing, rehearsing and working on her band’s business isn’t all that she does — a change that’s occurred in the past three months.

Vieira landed a new job teaching voice and piano at Gordon’s Music and Sound in Fairfield. There, she instructs students who range in age from 6 to 40 and come “from all walks of life,” she said. Her students have their first recital at 5:30 p.m. May 19 at the 810 Texas St. store.

“I love being able to give back in this way,” said Vieira. “It’s very enriching and life-changing to make a difference in people’s lives through music.”

Notably, one of her adult students will be performing on Saturday and making her debut with the band.

“She is such a gifted voice student with so much promise,” Vieira said of Erika Harris, to be a May graduate of Solano Community College. “I am very excited to be mentoring her. She defines her singing voice while maintaining her studies. How impressive is that?”

Additionally, over the past six months has been busy serving on the board of the Vacaville Jazz Society, in which, she wrote, brings Solano County “a bit of cultural musical offerings by representing World Music and our fado/jazz fusion.”

She and the band plan to perform during the Vacaville Jazz Festival on the weekend of Sept. 20-22.

“The educational component is very important and our last jazz festival earned enough proceeds to give back to the schools in the surrounding areas to keep music alive in the community,” said Vieira.

For her next recording, she promises a “new focus” by returning to her traditional roots of Portuguese fado.

“I will be working with the traditional fado musicians that I worked with last summer in Madeira, Portugal,” she said of the recording.

For those who may wonder what the word “fado” means, it roughly translates as “fate” or “destiny,” circumscribed by melancholic and nostalgic sounds, and, as a genre, can be viewed as the musical equivalent in Portugal of flamenco in Spain, tango in Argentina, and traditional blues in America.

The appeal of fado — pronounced “FAH-doh” — with mysterious origins traced to early 19th-century Portugal and enjoying a growing fan base in the United States, is in its melodies, the hummable part of each song, she said during a previous interview with The Reporter. The music is alluring, passionate, plaintive, but also poetic and dramatic.

“It’s love songs of tragedy” and longing, or “saudade” in Portuguese, added Vieira, a native of San Leandro and an alumnus of the American Conservatory Theater program in San Francisco.

References to fado in Portugal have surfaced as early as the 1820s, the music sung by women lamenting their lost men at sea, or of a hardscrabble rural or city life, but its roots may have Moorish influences, too.

While the genre has its traditions, Vieira considers her fado stylings “contemporary fado,” where the Old World meets the New, very much like the approach taken by other well-known active fado vocalists. They include Ana Moura and Mariza, all of them indebted to one of the greatest fado artists, Amalia Rodrigues, sometimes called “The Queen of Fado,” who died in Lisbon in 1999 at age 79. While some men also sing fado, it is best known today because of its female artists.

She has released several albums, among them “Sem Ti” (Without You), “Despi A Alma” (roughly translated as Bare Soul), “Lagrimas De Rainha (Tears of the Queen), and “Fado Da Vida” (Destiny of Life). They are evidence that Vieira not only pays homage to Rodrigues but also signals that she can compose original fado music.

Pop, rock and jazz can be heard seeping into her sound, and she counts among her influences U2, the Irish rock superstars, and Kate Bush, an English singer-songwriter. Ultimately, Vieira’s sound admittedly is something of a blend of U2, Bush and Rodrigues.

That fado is “theatrical and highly expressive” was an emotional and technical link to her early days “as a theatrical person,” she said.

Vieira recalled performing in musicals at California State University Hayward and at Ohlone Community College in Fremont. She is also a trained dancer.

• IF YOU GO
  What: Ramana Vieira and her quartet
  When: 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday
  Where: In the Speakeasy at Makse Restaurant, 555 Main St., Vacaville
  Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door
  Online: www.ramanavieira.net
  Telephone: (707) 685-9744