Music doesn’t generally create history, but accompanies it for better or for worse. Same tides, same flow: rising with human comeuppance, or descending alongside a collective human crash. And the human race itself is like water: slowly flowing to the lowest point, changing its composition to rise to the top, only to fall down again. So that music is like water, we can’t live without it but it also celebrates our funerals. Horace Silver and Paul Gonsalves were two Portuguese Cape Verdeans, who made an enormous contribution to American Jazz by creating beautiful rhythmic flow, just ask Duke Ellington. I’m not a Fadista so I don’t know if there were any outside influences on the … [Read more...] about The Outsiders!
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Thrifty newcomer may be just the ticket in profligate Portugal
Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugal’s prime minister-elect, does not like wasting money. Both in his professional career and personal life, he has been described as thrifty, frugal, even tight-fisted. He currently lives in a standard apartment block in the none-too-fashionable Lisbon district of Amadora, but if he moves into the prime minister’s residence near the São Bento Palace his stinginess may come in handy in solving Portugal’s debt and deficit crisis. That, at least, appears to be what many Portuguese were thinking when they handed victory to Passos Coelho’s centre-right Social Democrats (PSD) in last Sunday’s general election, coupled with a desire to get rid of the Socialist … [Read more...] about Thrifty newcomer may be just the ticket in profligate Portugal
A bitter celebration as Portugal remembers the Carnation Revolution
Thirty-seven years ago today, a swell of disenchantment with the Portuguese government of Marcello Caetano, a continuation of the regime of long-time dictator António Salazar, prompted a group of army officers to lead a coup. Word spread, resistance was virtually non-existent and in the space of a few non-violent hours, the regime was on the verge of being ousted. The putsch culminated in a strange scenario in which Caetano locked himself inside the National Republican Guard building in Lisbon’s Carmo Square as a massive crowd – including armed soldiers and curious men, women and children from the neighbourhood – gathered to watch. After several hours, Caetano gave in and signed a … [Read more...] about A bitter celebration as Portugal remembers the Carnation Revolution