Getz/Gilberto
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Free Music Notes for Getz/Gilberto
Free Music Review: One thing to say---
Hit: 5 Stars
I do not know a word of Portugese, but I can sing "The Girl From Impanema" by heart -- in Portugese. That's how many times I've played this album.If you can and have the means to play it, get this in its original LP format. But the CD is most excellent as well, and if you haven't ever heard it, I encourage you to buy it right now; you won't be disappointed.
Free Music Review: Something about Samba
Hit: 5 Stars
This will just be a short review..this CD is absolutely wonderful. I am not going to compare it to anything...I'm not even going to try and describe it other than to say it brings me an incredible amount of joy. It's sexy cool, it's flippin' hot. It's just right for a night of loving.
My only complaint is that it is too short...but maybe that's the genius of it because it made me crave other music by both Getz and Gilberto.
So I'm going to let you stop reading and let you purchase this beautiful recording.
Free Music Review: Timeless
Hit: 5 Stars
I owe it, always love it from the very first time I heard it back in Paris in 70s. It's timeless, elegant and soothing. Buy it.Free Music Review: The Most Essential Bossa Nova Album
Hit: 5 Stars
The creators of the bossa nova: Joao and Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carols Jopim and Stan Getz made this album. Thanks to the all 5-Star ratings that made me buy one on the best Jazz albums I own. Although I consider bossa nova as easy listening compared to bebop and free jazz, but albums like this one proved that sometimes simple music with simple improvisations can stand the test of time. Thanks to the all 5-star ratings here that helped me buy this album.Free Music Review: From the perspective of a Joćo Gilberto fan...
Hit: 3 Stars
First of all, I must say that this album is not all that bad. The songs are all good, though you need to understand Portuguese to really appreciate them. But having listened to a large chunk of Joćo Gilberto's recorded output (and no Stan Getz beyond this album), this is a disappointing album.It's got to be one of the most overrated albums in music history. Essentially, it boils down to Stan Getz using "exotic" music he does not understand as a background to long loud solos that don't fit it. If you listen to the Gilberto's original Bossa Nova recordings (sadly, currently out of print) and compare them to this album, you can't fail to be struck by how the former were very much about rhythm and songcraft, not about masturbatory improvisational soloing as this album is. The instrumentation and orchestration in those albums is all put in service of the song, and the songwriting is superb.
The songcraft, however, is sadly lost for the overwhelmingly English-speaking audience of this album because (a) they don't speak Portuguese (or, Spanish, for that matter), (b) the "translations" of "A Garota de Ipanema" and "Corcovado" are DREADFUL, (c) Stan Getz is too interested in the limelight to lay his musical ego aside and put the song first. In short, this album suffers from a terrible clash between the sensibilities of its two namesakes; and the Anglophone audience that endlessly lauds it does not even realize it.
When you add the fact that Getz made an order of magnitude more money off this album than everybody else on it (hell, Astrud Gilberto reportedly made a grand total of $120 for a night of work), the above comments take on a more disquieting significance: here we have yet another case of a powerful first-world musician exploiting "exotic" musicians to market himself to an Anglophone audience, while never really caring to understand the music involved. Thus the real underlying theme of this album: the power assymetries between the US and the rest of the world.
All that might be excused if Joćo Gilberto sounded good in this album. But in fact, compared to most of his recorded output, here he sounds absolutely dreadful. The guitar sounds dead. There are rumours that Getz had the album reequalized to make the sax sound louder, at the expense of the rest of the instruments; at any rate, there is just no treble in Joćo's guitar. And his interpretation is just too lethargic. Joćo Gilberto is the only interpreter I'm aware of who combines "nearly silent" with "immensely funky". Yet this album lacks the second element.
If you have some reason for worshipping Stan Getz, I guess you don't need my opinion to judge this album. If, like me, you find yourself rooting for Gilberto in this recording, look elsewhere.