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Rating: We are in the distant March of 1964. The playing fields are still graced by Pelé and, above all, the carioca Garrincha (the greatest and most ingenious footballer of all time after Maradona, but perhaps that's another story...) Brazil, having forcefully entered the collective imagination thanks to its victory in the last two World Cups, represents a dream: joy, fun, economic rebirth. And, above all, the utopia of a peaceful interracial coexistence that seems to be coming true.
Attracted to this dream was the American saxophonist Stan Getz, one of the founding fathers of cool jazz. Cool jazz was, between the late '40s and early '50s, the "whitest" (i.e., European) interpretation of jazz, which was born, it is good to remember, mainly as black music (i.e., African American). Compared to the previous bebop, cool jazz was more melodic, cultured, evoked more relaxed atmospheres, and was ultimately more accessible for a white audience.
But let's return to our story... when Stan Getz's star was dimming due to the success of the new hard bop movement, which marked the return of jazz as emotion and improvisation, the American artist listens to recordings by guitarist Joao Gilberto and is captivated. Joao Gilberto, together with pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim, had in fact canonized a new musical genre, that of bossa nova. Just as cool jazz was the white interpretation of jazz, so bossa nova is nothing but a reinterpretation of (black) samba in a more European (white) style, characterized by a slower rhythm and a more relaxed atmosphere.
Already in 1962, Stan Getz had released, together with his friend Charlie Byrd, an album ("Jazz Samba") that married Brazilian compositions and rhythms with the unmistakable cool jazz sound. Thanks to tracks like "Desafinado" and "Samba de Um Nota Só", the album was a resounding success, both in the United States and in Brazil. But for Stan Getz, it wasn't enough; he felt that something was still missing to achieve perfection. And that something could only come from Brazil, and in particular from Rio de Janeiro, the birthplace of bossa nova.
At the beginning of 1964, thus, the greatest names in Brazilian music were brought together in the recording studio: the already mentioned Antonio Carlos Jobim on piano and Joao Gilberto on vocals and guitar, and the less known but fundamental Milton Banana on percussion and Sebastiao Neto on double bass. The machine is now perfect, ready to release the album that would remain the unsurpassed (and perhaps unsurpassable) landmark of bossa nova and probably all Brazilian music.
The greatest contribution to the ten tracks of the album might be given by Joao Gilberto's guitar, with his unique "batida", a rhythmic-harmonic technique that from that moment on would be imitated by all Brazilian singer-songwriters. But, in reality, every element has a fundamental role: starting with Stan Getz, whose sax practically acts as a second voice, a counterpoint to Gilberto's warm and nasal voice. It is a flawless interpretation, always measured and never out of place, typically cool jazz. Great credit also goes to Jobim, author of the music of almost all the tracks on the album, who paints soft and delicate harmonies on the piano. And fundamental, as I have already mentioned, is the rhythm section, finally Brazilian, which accompanies Gilberto's melodies without emphasis but with great personality. But one cannot fail to mention the poet Vinicius de Moraes, also a father of bossa nova and author of the most unforgettable lyrics on this album, and especially Astrud Gilberto, the guitarist's wife, who lent her voice, timid and sensual, almost by chance on this record, and who will forever be identified as the "girl from Ipanema". Commenting on the tracks one by one would not do justice at all to this extraordinary record, an icon and manifesto of Brazilian music. I therefore invite you to listen to the entire album in one breath and, as in a dream, imagine yourself lying under a beach umbrella on Copacabana beach in the distant March 1964.
Without thinking that, a few days later (March 31, 1964), the dream will vanish. A coup d'état, in fact, will lead to twenty years of military dictatorship, with disastrous effects on the economic and social front.
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