【Repost] Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
The original master tapes for this title had not been used since 1980 previous to this reissue. Also, for this Analogue Productions reissue the decision was made to master and present this album as it was originally mixed to master tape. With very few exceptions all versions of this title to date, including the original, have had the channels incorrectly reversed. With this version, you'll hear this title as it was intended to be heard, without the channels reversed. And again, those reissues you've heard up until now - definitely still breathy, warm and rich - were made from something less than the master. Prepare to hear the veil removed.
“Mono & Stereo magazine's reviewer Matej Isak says Chad Kassem's efforts via his Quality Record Pressings pressing plant "goes beyond simple vinyl revival." "What can I say? I have a few different copies of this album and this release is of a completely different nature of sound. … Isak also raves, "Everything is even more subtle and present. Astrud's vocals finally got the needed three-dimensionality and 'spirit' and Getz's saxophone breathes out of proportion. When compared to other pressings, for example, Astrud is a mere statue. Here, she came alive with the feeling of real life-size. ... With 45 RPM benefits, the album gained better transients and a sense of atmosphere. It moves you more intimately and straight to the core." A Mono & Stereo Strictly Vinyl Analog Award winner.” – Acoustic Sounds / Mono & Stereo
“Getz/Gilberto is a 1964 jazz-bossa nova album by American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto, featuring composer and pianist Antônio Carlos Jobim. Its release helped fuel the bossa nova craze in the United States and internationally, becoming the first Grammy Award-winning album from non-American artists. It brought together Stan Getz, who had already performed the genre on his LP Jazz Samba, João Gilberto (one of the creators of the style), and Jobim, a celebrated Brazilian composer (and also one of the main creators of the genre), who wrote most of the songs in the album. It became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, and turned Astrud Gilberto, who sang on the tracks "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Corcovado", into an internationally celebrated musician. The painting on the cover is by Olga Albizu.
It won the 1965 Grammy Awards for Best Album of the Year, Best Jazz Instrumental Album - Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. "The Girl from Ipanema" also won the award for Record of the Year in 1965. This was the first time a jazz album received Album of the Year. It was the only jazz album to win the award until Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters 43 years later, in 2008.
JazzTimes (11/94, pp. 88–89) - "...essential for all serious jazz collections...served as proof that it is possible for music to be both artistically and commercially successful...this relatively sparse setting with the great Getz perfectly fit the music, resulting in a true gem..." Vibe (12/99, p. 158) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century. In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked the album number 447 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was listed by Rolling Stone Brazil as one of the 100 best Brazilian albums in history.[6] The album was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.” – Wiki
Astrud Gilberto says that her husband, Joao, informed Stan Getz that she "could sing at the recording." Creed Taylor recalls that it took Getz's wife, Monica, to get both Astrud and Joao into the recording studio; Mrs. Getz had a sense that Astrud could make a hit. And Getz himself is on record saying that he insisted on Astrud's presence over the others' objections. So who's right? What does it matter? The Gilbertos, Getz and the legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim followed up the bossa nova success of Jazz Samba with this, the defining LP of the genre. With one of the greatest hit singles jazz has ever known - each one who hears it goes "Ahhh!".
Originally released in 1963.
Paul Hindemith often expressed his disbelief in abstractions inmusic. Music should concern the making of music, not the speculativetranscending of its limits.“The ear," he said,“should remain the first and last court of appeal."
The songs of J๐ลัo Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim came to America like a breath of fresh air. Their music arrived here at a time when anemia and confusion were becoming noticeable in our music to anyone who knew enough to be concerned. The desperate craze forinnovation had been overextending itself. Jazz literature wasbecoming increasingly pompous, complex and chauvinistic, theorizing and analyzing itself into a knot. Musical groups were disintegratinginto an every-man-for-himself ego-mania. Soloists and sidemenwere engaged in endurance tests of repetitious and/or outlandish endeavours. Sometimes they lost the audience. Worse, they often lost musical contact with one another.
A discerning minority of greats and true jazz aficionados everywhere remained in a state of apprehension concerning this questionable trend. Was it inevitable that jazz would lose its initial charm in the process of growing up? Did approaching maturity herald the eventual loss of the refreshing qualities which kept jazz apart from traditional music?
Then came the music of these Brazilians with an impact much thesame as the one caused by the child's classic comment in H.C.Anderssen's Emperor and His New Clothes. If for nothing else themusic world is indebted to them for exposing“the emperor" in all his nakedness.
Thus the ultimate making of this record was inevitable. Wediscovered an indestructible bond between us. Sebastiao and Milton aswell as Jono and Ton understood little more English than I didPortuguese, but it didn't matter. We had the music, the excitement ofplaying together, and the feeling of mutual respect for one another,Unpretentiousness, spontaneity and the poetry of honest emotionbelong back in jazz. And don't let that gentleness fool you. These guysknow how to swing harder than most, and they do it without pushing.Had this record never been released, the making of it would havebeen gratification enough.
Peace is a beautiful feeling.
To understand and be understood is a kind of peace.
I find great peace in real communication with another person. Getzis a person I understand, and who understands me even though wespeak different languages. I would say that even if we could notexchange a word, the love that we have for music would be enough tomake us friends.
Our talks - generally through our wives - are sometimesamusing. I do my best to speak English, and Stan uses all his knowl-edge of Latin languages:“Diga ao Jouo.."" When Stan gives an opinionI often exclaim,“Exactly what I was going to say?" This happened so often one night that I thought to myself, "I had better disagree once in a while or it will sound illy." Thetruth is that we agree on most everything.
Some years ago when I was young and searching in my country, I knew about Stan though he didn'tknow about me. I was introduced to his music through Donato, a pianist friend of mine. Time and againwe listened to Getz records with stirred emotions.
Despite our good friendship Inever forget that Stan Getz is a great artist. There isn't any Americanwhom I'd rather hear playing the music of my country. Jobim said "lt's unbelievable the way Getz
assimilates the spirit of the Brazilian music!" My good friend Dorival Caymmi, composer of Doralice, willbe amazed at the swing and feeling Getz gives his authentic samba, so typical for Bahia.
Ary Barroso wrote the composition P'ra Machucar Meu Coracao.
Barroso is an outstanding figure in the history of Brazilian music. Ary was ill when we recorded thisalbum. I told Getz how happy 1 thought it would make Ary feel to hear his composition recorded by us.He will not hear it. Today as I write this, I know that he is dead. Now our version will remain as a humblehomage to Ary Barroso from myself and from Getz who came to love him through his music withoutever having met him.
Finally just a word about Astrud, my wife. She always liked to sing and we often sing together athome. I like the way she sings The Girl from Ipanema. Getz heard her sing it and asked her to record it'with us. This is her first recording date, and I am glad she was among friends.
In many ways, then, this is more than a record. It is friendship
communicated by music.
J0Ao GIL BERTO, 1963
When in 1962, Stan Getz's LP Jazz Samba began racing up the sales charts, those denizens of themusic business who are there not to contribute but to take from it, whose very survival in fact dependson the theft of ideas from others, began falling over each other in their haste to jump on the bandwagon.Imitations of the album poured from the presses.
Ina few short weeks, the remarkable and significant Brazilian musical development that Stan hadintroduced to the North American public, a development that had promised to have a refreshing andhealthy influence on the sick American music business, was ravaged and ground into the turf. When thefad was over and the takers had gone on to other things, everyone thought bossa nova was dead. Onegroup thought so because they weren't making so much money on it now; we who loved the musicthought nothing so lyrical and exquisitely subtle could survive so brutal a treatment.
Both groups' underestimated the vitality of bossa nova. We allshould have realized that anything so valid had to survive. And it has.
In the months that followed, jazz musicians of sensitivity began the legitimate incorporation of its melodies and rhythms into their work, though I have yet to hear anyone play it as well as Stan does with his quartet. Stan and Creed Taylor produced another bossa nova album, with arrangements by Gary McFarland, a superb disc called Big Band Bossa Nova, and then another called Jazz Samba Encore, with Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfa - both of which, incidentally, have had phenomenal public acceptance, and continue to sell一long after the supposed death of bossa nova.
Now, nearly two years later, it seems that bossa nova has won: it has become a part of North America 's musical life. The present LP brings together the two Brazilians who launched the bossa nova movement in Brazil 一 the incredible singer-guitarist Joao Gilberto and the equally incredible composer-arranger-pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim - with one of the most astonishingly gifted musicians American jazz has yet produced, Stan Getz. And I'm not using those adjectives lightly.
By the testimony of Jobim and Gilberto themselves, it was the“cool”school of jazz (a misnomer if ever there was one), and particularly the controlled-vibrato, straight-tone saxophone approach that Stan uses, that influenced the development of bossa nova. You need only compare Stan's tenor sound with Joao's vocal sound to see the parallel. It is a relaxed approach. The air moves effortlessly past the reed, in one case, or through the vocal chords, in the other. It is as if the air were not so much pushed out as allowed to flow out. The approach demands that the player have superb assurance and absolute control of his instrument. Stan and Joao don't seem to make mistakes.
The record has an extremely warm feeling about it. I think it derives from the fact that the record date was to an extent a gathering of friends. Milton Banana has long been Joao's drummer. The girl's voice that you hear on the album is that of Astrud, Joao's wife, a sweet, quiet girl who is herself a composer一- and, of necessity, Joao's English translator!
Of the eight tunes on the album, six are Jobim's. Jobim (Composer of "Desafinado”) is also an excellent lyricist, as if being the best composer of light music since George Gershwin weren't enough for him. He wrote the Portuguese lyric to Corcovado, which is the name of the mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro on which stands that huge statue of Christ. The English words that Astrud sings are mine.
So Danco Samba has a sentimental association for me: Joao was sitting on the sofa in Jobim's living room in Rio, rehearsing it, the first time I met them. The title means“I Only Dance Samba”and expresses the singer's weariness with Twist, Calypso, and Cha-cha-cha. This is one of the hardest-swinging of the bossa nova tunes, and Joao and Stan both got a marvelous groove on it in this recording.
Grande Amor means“The Great Love.”This and Vivo Sohando are comparatively recent Jobim tunes. Stan Getz was a brilliant tenor player when he was still a teen-ager. The years since then have seen him grow and grow. And grow some more. There is a mature emotionalism to his work now, and his sound has acquired a gutsy maleness without any loss of lyricism - on thecontrary - the lyricism has deepened.
No recording I've heard captures his sound as well as this one, justas no previous recording has captured João's sound like this. Part ofthe reason is that the recording was made at a tape speed of 30 inchesper second, instead of the usual 15. Notice, too, how beautiful thesound of Jobim's piano is reproduced.
word about Milton Banana. All the bossa nova musicians havetold me he is one of their greatest drummers. I never realized just howgood he is until I heard test pressings of this LP. The sensitivity andtaste he displays in adjusting from João's vocal solos to Stan's tenorimprovisations is striking. Note particularly how he makes the shift inSo Danco Samba. After playing softly on closed high-hat cymbalsbehind João, he opens up ever So subtly behind Stan, playing figuresthat are a strangely appropriate blend of jazz and bossa nova.
Here, then, is the inevitable meeting of Stan Getz and JoãoGilberto, notably assisted by their mutual friend and mine, AntonioCarlos Jobim. It is a happy album. I think it is also a great album.
- Gene Lees, 1963
