Toward the end of her Kennedy Center concert, Luciana Souza sang a funny Brazilian song that she'd learned in her childhood.
"There is a song my father makes me sing every time I go to Brazil, and I've been going there for — I've been here since 1985 — so for a long time," Souza says. "I'm going tomorrow, and I swear to God in two days he's going to pick up the guitar and make me sing this song.
"It's because it's about a duck — a Brazilian duck, o pato — that only lives in Brazil," she says. "And this duck is so cool and so swinging that he gets together with other birds by a lagoon, and they try to make a vocal group. And the duck is the leader with that great voice that he has. And of course they end in the water, and I think they're a little drunk, you know, because Brazilian ducks would, of course, be drinking."
Souza sings (and quacks) in Portuguese, while Keith Ganz plays the guitar solo. The whole concert is on JazzSet.
Jayme da Silva's "O Pato" has also been recorded by Joao Gilberto, Jon Hendricks, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins and Karrin Allyson.
Copyright 2008 WBGO