Gilberto Gil - Duetos (2007)

As the title of this compilation suggests, it's a collection of songs in which Gilberto Gil shares the stage with other artists. Some of the tracks are well-known, other more obscure. Gil at his best is a brilliant songwriter and singer, which is of course apparent on this album. However, most of the 14 tracks here were not written by Gil and do not in any way represent the best or most interesting features of his enormous discography. The material on this CD is quite disparate, and the only thing every song here really has in common is that you can hear Gil's voice on the recording. Gil's own work is already very eclectic as it is, spanning from bossa nova to tropicalia, reggae, '70s disco grooves, singer/songwriter-styled folk music, and traditional rhythms from the state of Bahia. But in several cases here the tracks are more representative of Gil's various duet partners' music than with Gil's own, which makes this compilation sound somewhat incoherent. Since the beginning of his long career, Gil has consistently recorded interesting, creative, and highly exciting music, although many of his albums have been slightly uneven. In other words, the potential for a worthy Gilberto Gil "best-of" is excellent, to say the least. Even though several tracks here, such as Nação Zumbi's "Macô," Cazuza's "Um Trem Para as Estrelas," and Riachão's "Cada Macaco No Seu Galho," are fantastic pieces of music in themselves, this compilation, due to its incoherence, fails to make much sense as a unit or as a CD released under Gilberto Gil's name.© Philip Jandovský /TiVo