Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, I think it’s important that we get a few things straight about bossa nova and its relation to samba. The best explanation comes from the Brazilian Drummer-Percussionist-Educator-Clinician Alberto Netto.

“Bossa nova and samba are the most well-known Brazilian song styles. As a performer and educator, one of the most asked questions I get is, ‘What’s the difference between bossa nova and samba?’ Well, bossa is one of the samba styles, it’s called bossa nova samba in Brazil. However, if you analyze the two based on harmonic progression, instrumentation, lyrics, and dynamic levels, there are quite a few differences. Bossa nova is played softer: it’s a more intimate style, with gentler vocals, played on acoustic instruments, with the nylon acoustic guitar the main reference for the distinctive bossa ‘sound.”’ Samba is usually more uptempo, with upbeat lyrics, but there are slower sambas as well such as samba-canção a styles predecessor of bossa nova. Some samba styles may add electronic instruments, a horn section, and more percussion, and the bands are usually larger.”

Netto clarifies the meaning of “intimate style” later in the article: “Bossa nova is never played loud or fast.” Hold on to that thought while we consider the genre’s origins and the path to Getz/Gilberto.

The Brazilian musical genre has demonstrated an enduring global appeal, and is the favorite type of music of millions of listeners around the world. Bossa still sounds fresh and modern despite the worst efforts of a hundred thousand lounge singers who have committed untold audio atrocities to “The Girl from Ipanema” over the years from Tokyo to Las Vegas . . .

Bossa nova was born in July of 1958 when singer-guitarist João Gilberto released the single “Chega de Saudade” (“No More Blues” in the U.S.), written by Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes, and given further life four months later with Gilberto’s recording of Jobim and Newton Mendonça’s remarkable “Desafinado.” Bossa was a new type of samba in which the genre’s rhythmic complexity had been pared down to its bare essentials, transformed into a kind of “stuttering” beat on Gilberto’s guitar that many listeners recognize immediately. The songs were casual and subtle, yet imbued with an infectious swing. Gilberto sang the lyrics in a personal, intimate, whispering style. And Jobim bolstered the beautiful melodies with unusual harmonies heard before only in the realms of modern classical music or jazz. Bossa’s rhythmic and harmonic richness was expressed with a sophisticated simplicity, and was something unprecedented in the world of popular music, in Brazil or elsewhere.

Alas, the critics in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo mostly hated it. They were offended by the unconventional harmonies (calling it “music for off-key singers”), the apparently strong influence of American jazz, and (João) Gilberto’s subdued vocals. Chris McGowan, Huffington Post, February 16, 2010.

That reference to “off-key” suggests that the critics preferred classic diatonic chords with compatible melodies rather than the chromatic approach preferred by João Gilberto and Tom Jobim. Building a chromatic chord involves adding “incompatible” notes to a diatonic chord and/or substituting standard notes with incompatible ones, and those chords are frequently used in modern jazz.

Okay! We can define bossa nova as a musical form that combines samba with modern jazz  (cool jazz in this case) and is never played loud or fast.

So how the hell did we wind up with songs like Eydie Gormé’s “Blame It on the Bossanova” and Elvis Presley’s “Bossa Nova Baby”? I asked Google AI about Eydie’s hit and received a surprisingly stern response: “No, Eydie Gormé’s 1963 hit ‘Blame It on the Bossa Nova’ is not authentic bossa nova. Instead, it is an American pop song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil that merged the catchy ‘Brill Building’ pop sound with Latin elements. During the early 1960s, American record labels widely misapplied the term ‘bossa nova’ to commercial pop tracks to cash in on the genre’s popularity.” The music moguls went even further, according to the Library of Dance:

“The Bossa Nova was a partnered dance craze of the early 1960s. Or perhaps it’s better described as a music craze that was accompanied by a variety of dance steps. Throughout the history of social dance, there’s been an essential co-evolutionary relationship between music and dance: new music inspires new dances, and new dances encourage the creation of more music for those dances. In the case of Bossa Nova, when the music, an innovative mix of Brazilian samba and American jazz, first hit the scene, there wasn’t a dance to go with it. But according to a record executive in late 1962, “To sustain itself, a new beat has to have an accompanying dance.” Based on this logic, it was reported that “one record company has arranged with a national dance studio to introduce a Bossa Nova step, and it seems certain others will follow.” Unfortunately, in 1963, Enoch Light, a popular Bossa Nova musician, reported, ‘I understand the dance studios have been working on creating a basic bossa nova step, but so far they can’t seem to agree among themselves what it should be.’ In a poll of teenagers that year, while nearly half of respondents said they liked the music, only 25% said they liked to dance to it. Without a clearly defined character and lacking the support of teenage dancers, the Bossa Nova was relatively short-lived as a dance craze.”

Largely thanks to the Stan Getz-Charlie Byrd album Jazz Samba, bossa nova had become the shiny new thing in the States in 1962. The album was the first jazz album to ever top the charts, and Getz walked away with a Grammy for his performance of “Desafinado.” What followed revealed that the Americans hadn’t learned a damn thing about bossa nova, as Getz, Quincy Jones, and Enoch Light all released albums with the same title: “Big Band Bossa Nova.” So much for “never played loud and fast.”

Other violations of bossa nova essentials are apparent on Getz/Gilberto. Stan Getz respected the intimate style of bossa nova on Jazz Samba, delivering gorgeous melodic runs and fills with due restraint. On Getz/Gilberto, he sometimes plays too damn loud on a few tracks, most noticeably drowning out Astrud Gilberto’s voice when she starts singing after the instrumental interlude of “The Girl from Ipanema.” I was relieved to learn that I wasn’t the only human being on the planet who found Stan’s contributions occasionally irritating; a retrospective article from O Globo revealed that João Gilberto had issues with Getz as well. “Ruy Castro (who wrote the book Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World) recounts that the two often struggled to agree on the best take—and producer Creed Taylor frequently had to cast the deciding vote. Amidst this dynamic, the encounter yielded not only a great record but also a historic exchange, with Tom Jobim acting as interpreter. João said: ‘Tom, tell this *gringo* he’s an idiot.’ Tom told Getz: ‘Stan, João says his dream has always been to record with you.’ Later, the Brazilian musician would also complain about the album’s equalization, which made the saxophone sound louder.”

The album was recorded in New York on March 18 and 19, 1963, and then sat on the shelves for over a year because producer Taylor thought there were too many bossa nova albums already on the market, and the album might bomb. Some idiots have defended Taylor’s decision, claiming he was worried about competing with the Beatles, but as everyone knows, Americans didn’t know dick about the Beatles until early 1964— when Getz/Gilberto was finally released in March of that year. Getz/Gilberto was one of the few albums to break through American Beatlemania and became one of the best-selling jazz albums in U.S. history. The album was also a massive hit in Western Europe, encouraging European jazz artists to record some of Jobim’s superb compositions.

If it seems I’m never done nit-picking, tough titties! I firmly believe that the album should have been titled Gilberto/Jobim ft. Stan Getz. I understand that Getz had to get first billing because he was the big name in the States,  but his contributions aren’t nearly as important as those of the other two gentlemen. I would settle for the compromise Getz/Gilberto/Jobim, but I will not give in on the latter. A recent retrospective article in Folha Online notes that João Gilberto developed the bossa nova rhythm, a “unique style of syncopating and harmonizing samba,” and that Tom Jobim “played a pivotal role in shaping bossa nova harmony.” Despite the saxophonist’s tendency to occasionally drown out his colleagues, Getz/Gilberto has held up extremely well over the years, thanks in large part to the musical foundation established by the Brazilian ensemble—the warm, intimate sounds of genuine bossa nova.

*****

Lyrics and translations provided by LETRAS.COM

“The Girl from Ipanema” (“Garôta de Ipanema”) (Jobim-deMoraes-Gimbel): This bit of news may blow your mind, but this song that “Swings so cool and sways so gently” consists entirely of chromatic chords. In fact, all the songs on the album received the chromatic treatment. Rather than taking up a whole lot of space here, I will refer those of you who are interested to Jazz Guitar Online, where you’ll find the sheet music, chord diagrams, and tabs for this brilliant bossa nova composition.

As the album version contains both the Brazilian Portuguese lyrics (sung tenderly and softly by João Gilberto) and Astrud Gilberto’s English version, you may assume that Astrud is simply repeating what her husband sang in English. Nope! Norman Gimbel did not provide a direct translation of Vinícius de Moraes’ original poetry but changed the narrative to create two different perspectives. João became the guy who longed for more than a look, while Astrud became the observer taking pity on the poor guy. Here’s a rough translation of de Moraes’ lyrics:

Look at that most beautiful thing, so full of grace
It is she, the girl, who comes and goes
With a gentle sway, on her way to the sea
Girl with the golden body, from the sun of Ipanema
Her sway is more than a poem
It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen pass by
Ah, why am I so alone? Ah, why is everything so sad?
Ah, the beauty that exists
The beauty that isn’t mine alone
That also passes by all on its own
Ah, if only she knew that when she passes
The smiling world fills with grace
And becomes more beautiful because of love

And Astrud responds with empathy:

Oh, but he watches her so sadly
How can he tell her he loves her?
Yes, he would give his heart gladly
But each day when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead not at he

Astrud Gilberto had accompanied her husband to New York for the recording sessions and had no idea she would wind up singing one of the most iconic songs in music history. Most sources will tell you that Astrud got the job because she was the only Brazilian in the studio who could speak English, which is pure bunk. While this was her first recording session, she had performed with her husband in clubs in Rio and other venues, learning to sing in the bossa nova style. The Performing Songwriter piece on the song repeats that myth, but the author did manage to get one thing kinda sorta right: “Astrud’s child-like vocal, devoid of vibrato and singerly mannerisms, was the perfect foil for her husband’s soft bumblebee voice.” I agree with the “foil” part, but João doesn’t sound anything like a bumblebee, and Astrud’s vocal is the opposite of “child-like,” as confirmed by my father’s reaction when he first heard the song back in 1964. “I remember it like it was yesterday. It must have been sometime in late April or early May of ’64 when school was in session. I used to listen to Giants night games in my room on an AM-only G.E. Table Clock Radio. The Giants were on KSFO back then, an easy-listening station, so when the game ended, I usually turned the dial to KYA to hear rock and soul music. One night after a game, I remembered I had some homework that was due in the morning, and forgot to change stations. I didn’t pay much attention to what was playing on the radio until I heard the sexiest voice I’d ever heard coming out of those tinny speakers. It was ‘The Girl from Ipanema,’ and after I bought the single, I played it to death in about two months.” Many a heterosexual male responded to Astrud’s voice in a similar manner, and I doubt that any of them were pedophiles. 

Believe it or not, some sources identify Astrud as the girl from Ipanema, another reminder that the internet is loaded with crap. According to Clube do Tom, “Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto is the girl from Ipanema. Tom and Vinicius de Moraes used to patronize the Veloso Bar, in the Ipanema neighborhood, on the corner of Prudente de Morais Street and Montenegro Street (lately named Vinicius de Moraes Street). They would sit on small tables placed on the sidewalk to have some beer and chat with friends. Several times they admired Heloísa’s charming walk. Living very close, she used to go to the Veloso Bar to buy cigarettes for her mother. Inspired by her beauty, Vinicius and Tom wrote ‘The Girl from Ipanema.'” Now known as Helô Pinheiro, she managed to maintain her beauty well enough to appear as a Brazilian Playboy Playmate in 1987 and once again in 2003.

My favorite passages in the song are the minimalist arrangements of João’s nylon classical guitar, Sebastião Neto’s double bass, light percussion from Milton Banana, and the sensitive counterpoints and block chords from Tom Jobim. João’s approach to guitar is worthy of further explanation.

He spent years — accounts vary, but possibly as many as three years in near-total isolation in the late 1940s — playing alone, working out a guitar technique that would synchronize melody, harmony, and rhythm into a single, unified gesture. What he arrived at was the batida: a syncopated right-hand thumb pattern that implied the bass line while the fingers simultaneously voiced chords in a rhythmically offset pattern. It sounds simple as a description. In practice it was extraordinarily difficult, and when Gilberto executed it cleanly, the effect was unlike anything Brazilian popular music had produced before. The samba rhythm was still present, but stripped of its energy and urgency, leaving only its skeleton — soft, interior, almost hypnotic . . .

Gilberto’s guitar playing rested entirely on the tonal properties of the nylon-string instrument. The classical guitar’s sound decays faster than a steel-string’s, which meant that each note in Gilberto’s patterns had to be placed with exact timing — there was no sustain to cover imprecision. The softer attack of the nylon string also matched the dynamic level at which he played: very quiet, always. (Siccas Guitars)

As for Getz, his long solo confirms the complaints regarding the equalization imbalance, and he only syncs with the other musicians toward the end of the solo when he mimics the basic rhythmic pattern. His interference with Astrud’s post-solo vocal is criminal, but it’s a jump ball as to whether Getz or producer Taylor should be tossed into the hoosegow.

“Doralice” (Almeida-Caymmi): Dorival Caymmi was an artist, actor and songwriter who, according to Ben Ratliff of the New York Times, “was perhaps second only to Jobim in establishing a songbook of this century’s Brazilian identity.” His compositions spanned multiple genres and were flexible enough to be transformed by singers grounded in genres other than that of the original, including bossa nova and Música popular brasileira (MPB). Tom Jobim said of Caymmi, “When I think about Brazilian music, I will always think of Dorival Caymmi. He is an incredibly sensitive person, an incredible creation.”

“Doralice” was a samba released in 1945 by the singing group Anjos do inferno (“Hell’s Angels”), and the version on Getz/Gilberto straddles the line between samba and bossa nova with its uptempo beat. The brief introduction that opens the song is a call-and-response, with João scat-singing the core melody while Getz responds in kind. Fortunately, Getz is on his best behavior throughout the song, and his extended solo features multiple influences from samba, bossa nova, and the blues. When Getz is on, his unique sound is a wonder to behold, and he nails this one—and the same can be said about João’s guitar and vocals.

The lyrics depict the classic struggle between the artist and convention. She (Doralice) wants marriage; he would “rather live all alone to the sound of my guitar’s lament.” Eventually he gives in, but continues to fret about it: “I really didn’t want to marry you/I really didn’t want to face this danger, Doralice/Now you have to tell me/What are we going to do?” My advice to Doralice would be: “You married an artist, so suck it up, kid!”

“Prá Machucar Meu Coração” (Barroso): Ary Barroso was one of Brazil’s most successful songwriters in the first half of the 20th Century . . . and a whole lot more. “Music was only one outlet for Barroso’s creativity. A lawyer by training, he balanced his musical career with work as a radio announcer, writer, humourist, reporter, producer, emcee, interviewer, and football commentator.”

Geez! When did the guy sleep?

Barroso also received an Oscar nomination for the soundtrack to the film Brazil in 1945 (not to be confused with Terry Gilliam’s black comedy), so even the Americans were aware of his musical talent. He passed away a month before the recording of Getz/Gilberto, so whether it was intentional or not, this song served as a tribute to Barroso’s multi-faceted abilities.

The title translates to “To Break My Heart” and can be heard as a tale of lost love or mourning for the composer. The brief introduction opens with guitar and bass handling the rhythm, while Tom Jobim plays lovely smoky bar piano arpeggios reminiscent of the music heard in movies of the 1940’s (no, the song was not part of the Brazil soundtrack). João’s vocal is one of the best on the album, as he applies a warm, regret-filled tone to the sad lyrics. Getz continues in his “good boy” persona with a fabulous performance that clings close to the melody while echoing Jobim’s smoky bar approach. My favorite verse appears at the end of the vocal, a bit of wisdom that might help those experiencing a break-up to see things from a different perspective:

Who knows? Maybe it was better this way?
Better for you and better for me.
Life is a school where we must learn
The art of living so as not to suffer.

I leave the song feeling that it deserved as much attention as any song on the album.

“Desafinado” (Jobim-Mendonça): The Wikipedia article on this song is surprisingly brief given the song’s status as a bossa nova classic, but the author managed to capture the essence of the song: “‘Desafinado’ was a response to critics who claimed that the bossa nova genre was created for singers who cannot sing.” As noted above, this was the second go-around for Getz, and while he acquits himself pretty well here, he knocked it out of the park with his free-flowing version on Jazz Samba. It was also another turn at the plate for João, who recorded the song on his 1959 debut album Chega de Saudade. His initial recording is okay, but the horns and strings turn me off, and his vocals still had room to develop in terms of phrasing and confidence. By the time Getz/Gilberto was recorded, he had mastered the art of vocal delivery.

Jobim’s composition is perfectly suited to the title, which translates as “off-key” or “out of tune.” He introduces several dissonant clusters of notes that I interpret as a subtle “screw you” to the critics. That orientation also applies to Newton Mendonça’s lyrics, but he was smart enough to avoid directly dissing the critics by staging the scene as a conversation between two lovers.

When I go to sing, you won’t let me
And the same complaint always comes up
You say I’m off-key, that I don’t know how to sing
You are so beautiful
But such beauty can also fade away

If you say I’m off-key, my love
Know that it causes me immense pain
Only the privileged have an ear like yours
I possess only what God gave me

If you insist on labeling
My behavior as unmusical
I must argue—even if I’m lying—
That this is bossa nova, that it’s perfectly natural

What you don’t know, or even suspect,
Is that the off-key ones have a heart too
I took your picture with my Rolleiflex
And your immense ingratitude was revealed

Just don’t speak that way about my love
It is the greatest love you could ever find
With your music, you forgot the main thing:
That in the chests of the off-key
Deep within the chest, beating silently
A heart beats in the off-key ones too

Though he admits to feeling intense pain, João’s tone never crosses the line into defensiveness. He views the difference in musical tastes as a misunderstanding and tries to expand her musical preferences. The underlying meaning of Mendonça’s lyrics is that all artists are “off key” when compared to traditionalists, and the line “A heart beats in the off-key ones, too” is a gentle reminder that artists are only human beings with a different outlook on life.

“Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)” (Jobim-Lees): Hooray for Astrud Gilberto! Her performance on “The Girl from Ipanema” thrilled both Getz and her husband, so they gave her another shot by allowing her to sing the two opening verses of “Corcovado,” a song that João had already covered on his 1960 release O Amor, o Sorriso e a Flor. 

Astrud soon found out that the kudos sent her way didn’t mean much when it came to promotion or the bottom line. Her name did not appear in the credits on the original version of the album. As for the money, well . . .

The extent of the financial injustice is also made clear in Ruy Castro’s 2003 book Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World. Castro details that João Gilberto received $23,000 for his work on the album. Getz got the lion’s share of money for the album, estimated by some to be nearly a million dollars. Getz earned so much from its success that he immediately bought a 23-room “Gone With the Wind-style mansion” in Irvington, New York.

As for poor Astrud Gilberto, she was paid a relative pittance for turning millions of people on to jazz and the rhythms of Brazil. The woman “responsible for the record’s international success” (in Castro’s words) earned only what the American musicians’ syndicate paid for a night of session work: $120 . . .

Getz often boasted that “he’d made Astrud famous”, but it seems he did his best to make sure she never received her fair share of the royalties. Gene Lees, the editor of DownBeat magazine, who translated “Corcovado” into English, later alleged that Getz intervened as soon as it was clear “The Girl from Ipanema” was going to be a lucrative hit. “Astrud hadn’t been paid a penny for the session and within days, the record was on the charts,” he wrote in Singers and the Song II. “It was at this point that Getz called Creed’s office. Betsy, Creed’s secretary, took the call. Creed was out of the office. When he returned and she told him Stan was anxious to talk with him, Creed thought Stan must be calling to see that Astrud got some share of the royalties. On the contrary, he was calling to make sure that she got nothing.” (Martin Chilton, The Independent)

It’s no wonder that “Bob Brookmeyer, another performing colleague, responded to speculation Getz had a heart operation with the rhetorical question ‘Did they put one in?'” (Wikipedia)

Even if you’ve never been to Brazil, y’all probably know about Corcovado, the mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro with the statue of Christ the Redeemer at the peak. Astrid’s family had moved from Salvador to Rio when she was seven, so she was quite familiar with the landmark and the mood it inspired. Here are the two verses sung by the Carioca:

Quiet nights of quiet stars
Quiet chords from my guitar
Floating on the silence
That surrounds us

Quiet thoughts and quiet dreams
Quiet walks by quiet streams
And the window that look south
On Corcovado, oh, how lovely

Did you notice that the word “quiet” appears seven times? I hope so, because Stan Getz certainly didn’t. Those quiet nights are blown to bits by Stan’s incredibly loud performance that makes me jump every time he blasts away, even though I know it’s coming. João enters to calm the nerves by singing the Brazilian Portuguese lyrics over soft guitar and light piano, then Getz returns with a bit more subtlety before resuming his assault with shots of ego-driven machismo. Jobim enters to restore the calm, followed by another verse from João, then Getz makes one last appearance, where he blows his brains out. I almost wish he had literally done so for having ruined Jobim’s excellent composition.

“Só Danço Samba”(“I Only Dance Samba) (Jobim-de Moraes): I always thought this was the nothingburger on the album, and lo and behold, Ruy Castro agreed with me: “In Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, author Ruy Castro suggests that the song was part of a failed movement to invent a bossa nova dance. “Jobim, who had never danced in his life, had just finished writing ‘Só danço samba’ [Jazz ‘n’ Samba] with Vinicius, but it was without much conviction. So much so, in fact, that on hearing ‘Só danço samba’ for the first time, João Gilberto asked him, ‘What’s this Tomzinho? A boogie-woogie?'” (via Wikipedia) Well, even the greats get it wrong sometimes.

“O Grande Amor” (“The Great Love”) (Jobim-de Moraes): After a hopeful beginning where Getz sounds like he’s had his daily fix, he suddenly decides to burst eardrums at the end of the opening instrumental passage, then goes completely wacko at the end of the song. As for Jobim and João, their performances are faithful to the song’s essential tenderness. Jobim’s piano arpeggios are the epitome of loveliness, and both men navigate the rich chord pattern with ease and grace.

The lyrics are short and sweet, and the site Bossa Nova Daydreams recently posted a new translation demonstrating that “short-and-sweet” can be quite poetic:

Come what may, my friends, there’s always a man for every woman.

There will always be a false love you must forget,

because it makes you feel like dying.

Be that as it may,

love’s greatness will surely prevail,

and when it wins over the heart

the one who cried will then forgive.

“Vivo Sonhando” (“Living in a Dream”) (Jobim): Getz only loses his cool once on this song, and instead of ending the song with another blast of overkill, he manages to show due restraint. That said, Jobim clearly outperforms the American with a lively piano performance sweetened by his marvelous touch on the 88s. Though I looked at the chord diagram and thought there was no way in hell that a guitarist could play it, João proved me wrong with his exceptional command of the fretboard.

The song is played at a slightly quicker tempo than one would expect of an apparently sad song, but the lyrics and João’s vocal capture the anxiety and uncertainty inherent in the experience of wanting someone and failing to succeed.

I spend my time dreaming
Dreaming for endless hours
A time when I keep asking
If you care for me
A time to speak of stars
To speak of the sea
Of a sky like this
To speak of the joy we share
But you don’t come, you don’t come

With you not coming
Not coming, life comes to an end
People pass by smiling
Mocking me
And here I am, speaking of stars
The sea, love, moonlight
Poor me
Who knows only how to love you

I’m just happy that we get to end the album with a beautiful composition played by musicians in sync with one another.

*****

The album was NOT an immediate hit in Brazil. As author Bryan McCann reported in his 33⅓ take on the album: “By the time it came out, Brazil was in the midst of a political crisis: tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets of Brazil’s major cities, demanding the ouster of President João Goulart. In the March of the Family with God and for Liberty in São Paulo on March 19th, they gathered to accuse Goulart of capitulating to communist radicals, and warned that Brazil was on the verge of going the way of Cuba. On March 31st, right-wing officers overthrew Goulart in a coup, initiating a dictatorship that was to last twenty-one years. The plaintive romantic music of Getz/Gilberto was decidedly out of step with the times. This explains why the album and its hit single, ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, rocketed up the jazz and pop charts in the US and Western Europe but were largely overlooked, if not outright resented, in Brazil.”

Ironically, the generals embraced bossa nova because of its apolitical orientation. MPB artists had a tougher time, and some learned to disguise their disdain for the dictatorship by coding their lyrics. What McCann did not mention was that the coup was aided and abetted by the Johnson administration with due attention to plausible deniability.

As for the girl who sang the song that made the album a hit, her future in the music industry turned out to be a mixed bag.

“Astrud Gilberto went on to have a successful career, releasing 17 original albums from 1964 to 2002 and collaborating with figures such as Quincy Jones, Chet Baker, Stanley Turrentine and George Michael. Despite her success, she was never accepted as a star back in her native Brazil. In this, she was not alone: The country rarely embraces Brazilians who rise to stardom while living abroad, particularly in the U.S. Before Gilberto, singer Carmen Miranda got the same cold shoulder. And Brazilians similarly shunned bossa nova legend Sérgio Mendes, who rose to fame in the late 1960s.”

“Astrud Gilberto ultimately only performed once in her native country after finding fame and emigrating to the United States in the mid-1960s. Despite a career that spanned four decades, Astrud was viewed by many in Brazil as merely João Gilberto’s wife – the girl that got lucky with that one hit record.” The Conversation.

She deserved so much better.

Even with the saxophonist’s occasional explosions, Getz/Gilberto is an exceptional album, an undeniable confirmation that the music of Brazil is as rich as that of any country on the planet. If you need to chill after your daily doomscrolling through the endless flow of bad news, Getz/Gilberto will calm your anxious soul.

Just keep your control device close by so you can turn down the volume in the spots noted above. Good luck!