Review: Mexican jazz singer Magos Herrera’s Hong Kong debut memorable
Arresting interpretations of songs delivered in Spanish, Portuguese and English, and uncluttered arrangements, made concert by singer and fine trio accompanying her one to remember
Magos Herrera is clearly more famous in Hong Kong than I, and possibly she, had thought. A more or less full house turned out at City Hall to hear the Mexican singer.
An inquiry from the stage as to whether there were any Mexicans in the house produced fewer whoops of affirmation than I would have expected, so clearly her following has a broader international base.
So has her repertoire. Mexican composers and settings of the words of Mexican poets were strongly represented in the evening’s programme, but she also drew on the bossa nova songbook of Brazilian Antonio Carlo Jobim, and sang arresting interpretations of Cuban band leader Mongo Santamaria’s Afro Blue, and the Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael standard Skylark.
The songs were sung in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and Herrera appears equally comfortable in each language.
She appeared with a fine jazz trio composed of guitarist Chico Pinheiro, drummer Alex Kautz, and bassist Sam Minaie, and The bossa nova tunes perhaps benefitted from the fact that Pinheiro and Kautz are Brazilian and completely at home in that style.