Amália Rodrigues, Live In Japan, Música Latina

May of 1986 and her voice is no longer one of the most perfect voices heard ever. Soon, it will sound more like 10 miles of bad road, albeit no less emotive. Here, it probably sounds like five miles of bad road, but still no less emotive. She makes me think of William Goldman's description of Bronko Nagurski, his career near an end, running yet. "This old man starts forward and they're braced and he jumps sideways at them, the old man flies at them and they parted like water and he was through and the rest of the game was nothing." She sings Don Solidon without the fluidity of her youth, sure, but she bowls you over nonetheless. Ricardo Gonçalves, Antonio Molicas and Joel Piñto on the guitarras behind her are stellar.

The wonderful music aside, the other thing I really love about this is her obvious rapport with the audience, which is Japanese, remember. She spins up Uma Casa Portuguesa and they immediately applaud. They know the song and they know her. She gets them to sing along more than once and speaks to them with some frequency, in English as a language in common. On Coimbra (April in Portugal) and Lavava, for example, the interaction is simply darling.

And now and then, as on Malhão, she throws down like it was 1950. See Uma Casa Portugesa, the CD not the song, from this Dutch label as well, which includes a set of 1945 recordings from Brazil and her Town Hall Concert in New York in 1990, a fascinating contrast.