Bahia

Description

'Bahia', Ana Carla Maza Bahia is Ana Carla Maza's second studio album. It opens with 'Habana', a tribute to the Cuban capital where she was born 26 years ago, to a Chilean father, the lush musician Carlos Maza, and a Cuban mother, guitarist Mirza Sierra. 'Cuba is a volcano,' said the father. 'Havana is madness,' replies the daughter. Of course, Havana is the Malecon, that Atlantic-facing boulevard, which receives the spray from the Everglades. Yet, the city nestles around a very closed, protected, safe bay: the Bahia, the back part of a human, port, cosmopolitan Habana Vieja, filled with the blends that have spread from Africa to Brazil. - - 'Bahia', the second title that gives its name to the album, is an ode to 'Bahia', the neighborhood where Ana Carla spent her childhood, where she built her family memories, between 'Cultural Friday' and concerts by Silvio Rodriguez or Pablo Milanes. Ana Carla translates the wild Cuban sensation there, 'with' her cello, 'this best friend', almost a twin, that she embraces, and which yields to the demands of blends: classical, son, jazz, bowing, sharp pizzicato, and voice. 'I love finding the energy of life, this 'alegria', joy. And I am filled with curiosity!'. Occasionally, she slips in a musical nod to her Brazilian brothers, samba, bossa nova, etc. 'Bahia', the album, wanders through Latin America: alongside 'Huayno', based on a Quechua rhythm and dance from Peru, or 'Todo ira bien', imbued with Cuban sound, Ana Carla transforms Astor Piazzolla's tango with 'Tango for solo cello', which she originally composed for a quartet to celebrate the centenary of the Argentine composer. The nine tracks, recorded acoustically in Barcelona, were done in a 'direct, simple, sincere way all at once, one afternoon was enough'. One can never emphasize enough the importance of the present. For example, there is no need to look for a subtext in 'Petit Françai's. 'At one point, I was in Paris, I went to a café, the Saint-Régis, and I exchanged love letters with a boy.' That's all. 'Bahia' is a post-pandemic album. The lockdown of 2020 caught Ana Carla off guard, holder of an 'overloaded' passport. She then had to leave for Mexico as the borders were closing. 'We are entering a state of total uncertainty. I wake up in the middle of the night, I gently move my feet, a little voice tells me: Todo ira bien, todo ira bien...'. Everything will be fine, and to express that, she did not seek complicated poetry, but feeling, 'por mucho que el pasado haya sido oscuro, miles de razones tienes para ser feliz'... 'Bahia' is a free album, written by a young musician with remarkable appetite, for whom taking risks is an artistic necessity. Véronique Mortaigne