The sensuous rhythms of the Brazilian bossa nova sound found a wider audience in the early 1960s thanks to the pioneering work of ethereal-voiced singer Astrud Gilberto, singer/songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim, and US jazz saxophonist, Stan Getz. Classic albums by this trio are about to hit the shops again as part of Universal’s ‘Originals’ series.
There are three Astrud Gilberto albums – ‘The Astrud Gilberto Album’ (1965, featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim and arrangements by Marty Paich); ‘Look To The Rainbow,’ (also from 1965, featuring arrangements by legendary Miles Davis collaborator, Gil Evans); and ‘A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness’ (a 1966 collaboration with organist Walter Wanderley and his trio).
Of course, Gilberto rose to fame as a featured singer on the Jobim-penned ‘Girl From Ipanema’ recorded for an album project combining the talents of her then husband Joao Gilberto and Stan Getz. Getz did a further collaboration with Joao Gilberto, ‘Getz/Gilberto #2,’ which is being reissued along with the tenor saxophonist’s 1963 pairing with Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida entitled ‘Stan Getz With Guest Laurindo Almeida.’
Another noted Brazilian bossa nova guitar player, Luiz Bonfa, has his collectable albums ‘Luiz Bonfa & Maria Toledo’ (1965) and ‘The Brazilian Scene’ (1965) reissued by Universal. The final album in the series is ‘Rio Revisited,’ a 1987 live album by Antonio Carlos Jobim and female singer Gal Costa. Included are striking versions of Jobim’s bossa nova classics ‘Wave,’ ‘Dindi,’ ‘Corcovado’ and ‘Desafinado.’
And if that wasn’t enough, for those wishing to delve deeper into the roots of the bossa nova phenomenon and aiming to get acquainted with the idiom’s less celebrated practitioners, there are thirteen collectable Brazilian titles reissued on EMI Odeon. One of the most significant albums in the collection is the 1956 opus, ‘Orfeu Da Conceicao,’ which kick-started the bossa nova movement some 52 years ago. It features songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim, who composed the music to Vinicius De Moraes’s play ‘Orfeu Da Conceicao,’ which was filmed as ‘Black Orpheus,’ a movie that took bossa nova to a wider, international, audience. Other EMI Odeon albums released to celebrate 50 years of bossa nova music include ‘Ideias,’ an early album by keyboard player Eumir Deodato, who later found success as a jazz-fusion artist at CTI in the 1970s. Also noteworthy is the eponymous album from 1964 by Quarteto Nova, a Brazilian group featuring two future Brazilian luminaries, Airto Moreira and Hermeto Pascoal.
Also reissued are the following albums:
Joao Donato e seu Conjunto – ‘Cha Dancante’
Luiz Bonfa – ‘O Violao e o Samba’
Marcos Valle – ‘Samba “Demais”‘
Milton Banana Trio – ‘Milton Banana Trio’
Walter Wanderley – ‘Samba no Esquema de Walter Wanderley’
Perry Ribeiro/Leny Andrade – ‘Gemini V (Show da Boite Porao 73)’
Perry Ribeiro + Bossa 3 – ‘Encontro’
Elizeth Cardoso e Cyro Monteiro – ‘A bossa Eterna de Elizeth e Cyro’
Doris, Miltinho e Charme – ‘Doris, Miltinho e Charme’
Elza Soares – ‘Elza Pede Passagem’
