Stan Getz
Stan Getz with Guest Artist Laurindo Almeida

11:20 a.m., a few uncertain steps, then I move the curtain, open the balcony shield, and finally, the sky at my latitude is back to doing its job, displaying a blinding light. It's hot. Here that's not news, but lately, I'd been a bit gloomy with a boring gray acting as a lid on the pot of long and heavy days. My back creaks, and I'm surely not a pretty sight in this state. I turn around, and she’s already sneaked away. A quick freshen-up in the bathroom and back to my beloved mattress. Actually, we picked it together. Or rather, she chose it. Perhaps it's fair to say the bed was her idea. Living together is truly a life choice. In terms of living, amplifying time, the only one you have to spend, with two brains. I already know that after many days spent listening to each other's voices on the phone, she's now preparing the breakfast trays. Today there won't be any phones ringing or clients bothering. Today I'm also getting back to doing my job. The fragrant trail of coffee tells me I was right. I'm happy with my eyes closed. I'll pretend to doze so I can get a few extra cuddles.

The stereo speakers turning on surprise me a bit. I see her bustling around in front of the bedroom door, busy doing something in the other rooms. There's more light in the house and more air. She's flung everything open. The first taste of spring has awakened her too, who, after three years in the Americas (both of them), had the crazy idea to follow me here. I who was supposed to be God knows where. They had me pegged for Tokyo, can you imagine? And yet I'm here. Here where she arrives with everything I never imagined could gently fill my stomach on a Sunday morning. The twist is that she's decided to fill my ears in a way that's different from my usual.

The CD player from there has started playing an excellent substitute for the Sunday bells. Her craving for the '60s and Brazil is contagious even to me, who is, for now, a devotee of Spanish-speaking South America. Without needing to ask anything, I feel fingers massaging my scalp and her voice telling me, "Stan Getz With Guest Artist Laurindo Almeida, 1963."

The two gentlemen in question have gifted me, after a good 47 years, a day that for me means the winter of the mind ends here. While the first track plays delicate and plucked, slightly smoothed by an author's sambino, she disappears for a few seconds. I see, just in time, the CD case crossing the door threshold, or else it would have hit me on the head. But what would I have said to her? Ah, here it is, "Minina Moca" this soft song that makes me curl up inside the sheets again with my eyes closed, breathing in her scent from the woman-warmed side of the mattress. The CD is interesting. A relaxation session for Stan Getz (no need for introductions) on sax, Laurindo Almeida (whom I don't know, but she appreciates immensely) on guitar, George Duvivier on bass, Edison Machado, Jose Soorez, Dave Bailey on percussion, and Luiz Praga and Jose Paulo directing the Latin rhythms.

With the second piece, "Once Again/Outra Vez", we are forcefully plunged into the most magical bossa nova with a strong dreamlike power for those who love to spend their leisure time with their eyes closed. The guest on guitar is a refined insert into the music of the jazzman Getz: when Almeida plays alone, my room and my mind are painted yellow and gold, and the atmosphere at home instantly turns carioca (but she rebukes me: it's paulista); when the American leads, the bossa nova takes on airs of jazz. All with two constants that permeate the six tracks: simplicity in technique and an evident Calvino-like lightness in atmosphere. I don’t know much about this music, but as an inexperienced listener, I think that’s exactly it.

Meanwhile, she's back beside me and from behind my back pulls out one of the hundred or more little photo albums she made when living in Rio. As she flips through it, "Winter Moon" starts, an orderly sequence of pleasant tones containing the poetry of a tropical serenade. The structure of the pieces also seems orderly: few rhythmic cues of guitar and percussion at the beginning, then Getz's sax singing like a westerner devoted to South America, for a couple of breaks that could be the song's lyrics, followed by Almeida’s solo, then closure with Getz more relaxed and the São Paulo guitarist coordinating the rhythm.

So relaxing that on "Do What You Do, Do" she dances next to the bed. Lightly, her hips flutter at my head's height while I'm absorbed in sipping a tea I don't know and nibbling on cookies brought from who knows where, but they have a fragrance and consistency that smell like freedom, just like the music we're listening to. Panther lady makes her entrance into my home "Samba Da Sahra", a piece that has already changed my summer plans (if you don’t know it, you can check out the DeCasi literary – Danger Danger/Revolve). Music that has such a power over my woman makes me curious. Dancing barefoot, she brings another small photo album. Salvador De Bahia. It’s here I want to go, as Stan Getz dives into a great solo trying to steer me toward Louisiana but failing. The luscious boundaries of the most mischievous and crafted samba by a westerner are those of Brazil. And that's where I want to go.

Then maybe I’ll find myself in Cyprus, but those hips that seem to flutter like a butterfly to "Maracatu-Too" tell me all on their own what I've fallen in love with besides her appearance. The free, refined, elegant, cheeky, and extremely curious and at the same time sensual spirit that moves freely in my home and my days contains all the cultural and explosive force of the movements that make millions of people walk with a hint of dance in an entire country. The closing percussion on Almeida's wonderful arpeggio already makes me imagine my night in Salvador. I want to be disturbed by this atmosphere that has made another appearance in my days. Murmured samba that surrenders to bossa nova, and this, on the other side, makes love with jazz. They don't have the taste of the pirate-like that I've already experienced, but that of an unknown that I can try to imagine, but in whose thought I stop not to start a grueling brain-tiring tour of imaginations to lose. This touch of spring was brilliant.

While I watch her dance, I decide that today must never end.

P.S. – the rating is four because the album is very good, but certainly not a masterpiece. Have a good summer, everyone.