West Stockbridge — Vocalist Natalia Bernal will perform a concert with The En Diablada Quintet on Saturday, October 5, at 7 p.m., at the Old Town Hall as part of a jazz concert series organized by the West Stockbridge Historical Society.
Bernal was born in Iquique, a coastal city in northern Chile, and her quintet includes guitarist Jason Ennis, bassist Gregg August, and drummer Conor Meehan. The group’s setlist on Saturday will feature traditional Latin American songs, songs from the American Songbook, and original compositions.
“I became interested in music through my father, who played guitar, and it was through him I became interested in the popular songs of the ’60s and ’70s in Latin America,” Bernal told The Berkshire Edge. “As a 10-year-old, I was always chasing my father around the house because he was playing guitar and singing songs. I always wanted to hang out with him. I didn’t even know what I was learning initially. Later on, as I learned about music, I started to understand the value of lyrics. I understood the struggle of those artists performing the songs to stay alive and have a voice to give to their people. I don’t think it’s an accident that this music all came my way, and I took it upon myself to continue the tradition of having that social responsibility.”
Bernal cited Cuban musician Silvio Rodríguez and American musician Joan Baez as two of her influences. “In times of social injustice due to political and economic reasons, these songs are important,” Bernal said. “As someone raised bilingual, I was very tuned in with music. It was fascinating to hear the parallels and differences between the songs that would come to me from the radio in English and Spanish. It was interesting to me to compare what the standard jazz songs would say, versus the songs of the people I was learning in Spanish. Some of the songs had hidden nuances. I think my thirst for jazz all came from that.”
Bernal will be singing songs in English, Portuguese, and Spanish in Saturday’s show. “I hope that the concert will be a moment of contemplation for everybody to realize that what speaks to you first is the language of music,” Bernal said. “There is a sensibility in that area and feelings to be explored. I like to speak about the songs that I perform and their relations to their decades to put them in the context of the periods that the writers came up with these songs. With this, I create parallels between what was happening in the United States at the time versus other corners of the Americas. I am a big fan of the Hollywood era of music, so I always plug in songs from Nat King Cole to Carmen Miranda.”
Tickets ($35 for West Stockbridge Historical Society members and $40 for non-members) are available on the West Stockbridge Historical Society’s website.
