Police Verde

In the 1950s, a few young men, known as Badius, embarked on a nearly 2,500-mile (4000 km) journey from the northern rural interior of Cabo Verde’s Santiago Island to the island of São Tomé off the Atlantic coast of central Africa. Incredibly, they made the arduous journey not to earn a better living or send money back home — but to simply buy an accordion, locally known as a gaita. They would work years in harsh conditions to earn enough to buy the instrument and a few more years to buy a ticket back to Santiago.

Bagdad, año 2003. El reino de Saddam Hussein ha terminado. Los norteamericanos están al mando. Y nadie tiene el control.
Christopher Henry, un antiguo policía reconvertido en contratista militar, lo sabe mejor que nadie. Está en el país para entrenar a un nuevo cuerpo de policía iraquí, y acaban de asesinar a uno de sus reclutas. Con la autoridad civil en ruinas y las calles plagadas de cadáveres, Chris es la única persona en la Zona Verde interesada en averiguar quién lo ha asesinado… y por qué.

Axel Steen, ispettore della sezione omicidi noto tra colleghi e criminali per la sua durezza e il carattere inquieto, vive a Nørrebro, il quartiere alternativo e multiculturale di Copenaghen, un posto dove artisti e spacciatori sono di casa e l'odore della benzina si mescola al profumo della cannella e del cumino. È da lì che, nel marzo del 2007, parte una delle rivolte di piazza più devastanti della storia moderna della Danimarca. Dopo lo sgombero della storica Ungdomshuset, il centro sociale punto di raccolta per attivisti militanti e autonomi, violenti disordini infiammano l'intera città…

Mana origins date back to a band called Sombrero Verde. In 1975 they decided to get together to play different songs from groups they admired, including The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, The Police, among others. They were originally known as The Spies of the Green Hat, but soon the name was shortened to Green Hat and was eventually adapted into Spanish as Sombrero Verde, as the band wanted to rock in their own language. They were one of the first groups to venture out, composing their own songs even though rock in Spanish was not yet a trend.

Even for the adventurous Charlie Haden, this encounter with the Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes is pretty unusual. Parades plays a 12-stringed, lute-shaped instrument which has a jangly tone quality, almost like a hammer dulcimer, and Haden dances around or underpins him adroitly and flexibly, with an occasional long solo interspersed. Apparently Haden was a national hero in Portugal for his left-leaning political crusades – he was even arrested once by the Portguese Political Police – and in this completely improvised program, you can recognize passages that resemble calls to arms in the manner of the Liberation Music Orchestra. The music, mostly by Paredes with an occasional exception like Haden's "Song For Che," has the stateliness and gusts of passion that mark the music of the Iberian peninsula, though without jazz feeling per se. World music fans thus will probably find it easier going than the average jazz browser.