Seu Jorge

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By BEN RATLIFF
Published: July 17, 2005

Seu Jorge
The Brazilian actor who played Knockout Ned in "City of God" and the singing sailor Pelé dos Santos - perpetually breaking into David Bowie tunes with roundabout Portuguese translations - in "The Life Aquatic" has made his second album, "Cru." It's impossibly likable. Mr. Jorge doesn't have the greatest voice - it is deep, droopy, quavery and half-swallowed, and can fall off pitch. But he is one of the few examples of an actor who uses an actor's tools to make a singing performance work, as opposed to just trying to impersonate a good singer. In a samba-funk version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Chatterton," he tries to make his deep voice as raspy as Gainsbourg's, until he has a coughing fit, then turns his voice into a squeak. But it's not just a hipster comedic act, keeping you at a distance: on a few gorgeous ballads by the young songwriter Robertinho Brant, he transmits deeper emotion as if he doesn't care how it sounds - which, of course, makes you need to hear it again. Great production, too: simple, funky where it needs to be, bare-bones to let the ballads get through more clearly. "Cru" appears in the United States (on the Wrasse label) Sept. 6; it's out in Europe already, on the hip French label Naïve and the British label Beleza, and available at http://www.dustygroove.com/.



Seu Jorge, Cotidiano, Chico Buarque; Starman, Life on Mars, Rock n' Roll Suicide, Rebel Rebel, David Bowie/Seu Jorge (do filme The Life Aquatic)