MikePadgett.com

Omara Portuondo

— When the singer isn't feeling it, a gig can become an ordeal.”

At the time of writing, the Cuban singer is seventy eight years old and when she wants to, she can still belt them out. There just wasn’t much cause to do so this evening.

Before a rather small crowd in Brussels’ crummy Cirque Royale, which these days shares more in common with Morley Con Club than it does with the Big Top, Portuondo tried to raise the temperature to lukewarm and more or less succeeded to the relief of many slightly embarassed spectators.

Her band, which might as well have done a residency at Morley Con Club, was very patchy and seemed unrehearsed. Consistently incapable of matching Portuondo’s improvisational approach to standards, they struggled to pull together. The pianist bashed away at his Steinway, not without skill, but hopelessly out of context, the guitarist and percussionist did no more than keep time while the double-bassist was a swan surrounded by ducks. The gum-chewing drummer, plucked from Ipanema and probably handy with a beach ball if not a drumkit, was so self-absorbed that he may as well have been drumming elsewhere.

Portuondo, wearing what looked like a pink dressing gown and pyjama combo, seemed so disconnected that at times the gig felt like a visit with a slightly mad granny. Either the star of Buena Vista Social Club was coasting through a tough night and a wooden crowd, or else she needs to sack that band and take a well-earned holiday. And I for one wouldn’t blame her. We all deserved better.