The timing was unfortunate. Just as the painful memories of Friday morning begin to fade, who should reappear in London after a 12-year absence but the Brazilian musician most closely identified with his country's football skills. His original aim in life had been to play the beautiful game rather than play a pioneering fusion of samba and funk, and he could easily have ended up with his favourite team, Flamengo, back home in Rio de Janeiro. He has written a phenomenal number of songs about football and his best-known hit, Mas Que Nada, was used by Nike in its 1998 World Cup campaign.
Jorge Ben (or Jorge Ben Jor, as he has insisted on being called for the past 13 years) is a Brazilian institution. Ever since the 1960s, he has been writing rousing anthems about life, love and football (avoiding the more serious themes that have concerned his contemporaries, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso), and in the process he has helped to transform Brazilian music. He was one of the first to show how samba could be played on electric guitar, and he has blended local styles with anything from funk to blues and rock. When he plays back in Rio (as he has been asked to do yet again if Brazil win the World Cup), the 62-year-old can still attract audiences of up to half a million.
This London comeback was a more modest, but still spectacular affair, thanks largely to the magnificent venue - the 18th-century courtyard of Somerset House. Ben Jor, like his followers, wisely avoided World Cup triumphalism and concentrated instead on a slick and energetic nostalgia blitz. He started with old favourites such as A Banda Do Ze Pretinho, and quickly eased from samba into funk, leading from the front with his driving guitar work.
Much of the best Brazilian music is marked by rhythmic delicacy and acoustic subtlety, but that was not for Ben Jor. He was backed by horns, keyboards, percussionists and a drummer with a hefty rock-style kit. For over two hours he bashed through singalong anthems like Pais Tropical, which showed his gift for writing a seemingly endless array of cheerfully memorable melodies, all of them tackled full-tilt. He ended with a singalong finale that included his anthem Taj Mahal, with the chorus line that Rod Stewart borrowed for Da Ya Think I'm Sexy. All very impressive, but it would have been better still if he had eased off just occasionally to show how his songs would sound with a light and subtle rhythmic backing.
