Omara Portuondo performs at The Freight.
At 88, Portuondo is still a nonpareil interpreter of boleros and fillin, a Cuban jazz style she helped introduce. She performs at The Freight & Salvage as part of what’s described as her Ultima Beso (Last Kiss) Tour. Fonseca.
The stage of the SFJAZZ Center’s Minor Auditorium practically overflowed with talent at the gala celebrating the epochal achievements of Cuban pianist/composer Chucho Valdés’ last February. But it was the most intimate and quiet performance that provided the evening’s biggest thrill, with Valdés accompanying the frail but full-voiced Omara Portuondo on a graceful and time-stopping rendition of “Dos Gardenias,” the 1940s Cuban standard she’s owned since recording it with the Buena Vista Social Club in 1996.
Valdés was a teenager when they first met in pre-revolution Havana. Portuondo was a dancer in the Tropicana floorshow where his father, piano great Bebo Valdés, was the bandleader. At 88, Portuondo is still a nonpareil interpreter of boleros and fillin, a Cuban jazz style she helped introduce. She performs at Freight & Salvage on April 20 as part of what’s described as her Ultima Beso (Last Kiss) Tour, accompanied by a trio led by the great Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca.
While she grew up in an artistic family, Portuondo was a shy young woman who deferred to her older sister, a top dancer in the chorus line of Havana’s leading Tropicana Club. Watching her sister rehearse every day, Portuondo memorized the routines, and when a last-minute replacement was needed, her sister and mother convinced her to step in. That was in 1945. She began attracting attention as a singer in the early ’50s when she started performing with a group of jazz-enthusiasts centered around the great, blind Cuban pianist Frank Emilio Flynn. Calling his group Loquibambla Swing, Emilio Flynn pioneered a subtle Latin jazz style called fillin, and landed a daily radio broadcast that gave Portuondo her first widespread exposure. In semi-retirement when she got a call from Ry Cooder, she has made the most of her second act.
Omara Portuondo, Sat., April 20, $42-$46, Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison St., Berkeley, 510-644-2020, TheFreight.org.
