Next Stop Wonderland: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture
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Music CD Cover
Performer: Various Artists - SoundtracksPerformer: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Performer: Callie Thorne
Performer: Ken Cheeseman
Performer: Pamela Hart (II)
Performer: Diane Beckett
Performer: Jeremy Geidt
Performer: Alan Gelfant
Performer: Dave Gilloran
Performer: Luz Alexandra
Performer: Emma Shaw (IV)
Performer: Kemp Harris
Performer: Neil Gustafson
Performer: Holland Taylor
Performer: E. Katherine Kerr
Performer: Jason Lewis
Performer: Jack Sweet
Performer: Paula Lyons
Performer: Arnie Reisman (II)
Performer: Betsy Nally
Edition: Music CD
Format: Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 1998-08-11
Music Label: Verve
Soundtracks:
- Batuacada - Bebel Gilberto/Vinicius Cantuaria
- Mas Que Nada - Tamba Trio
- Stay - Astrud Gilberto
- Crossed Paths - Claudio Ragazzi/Arto Lindsay
- Triste - Elis Regina
- Os Grilos (Crickets Sing For Ana Maria) - Marcos Valle
- One Note Samba/The Girl From Ipanema - Bebel Gilberto/Vinicius Cantuaria
- The Therapist - Claudio Ragazzi/Arto Lindsay
- Corcovado (Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars) - Astrud Gilberto
- The Suitors - Josh Zaentz/Sergio Brandao
- Baia - Walter Wanderley
- O Beijo (The Kiss) - Claudio Ragazzi
- Aquarela Do Brasil - Toots Thielemans/Elis Regina
- Desafinado - Antonio Carlos Jobim
- The Finale - Claudio Ragazzi/Arto Lindsay/Bebel Gilberto
- O Pato (The Duck) - Coleman Hawkins
Free Music Notes for Next Stop Wonderland: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture
Free Music Review: Flying Non-Stop on the Wings of Brazilian Jazz
Hit: 5 Stars
The brooding, poetic protagonist in Brad Anderson's 1998 film Next Stop Wonderland yearns to return to Brazil but is indecisive when the opportunity presents itself. The Verve soundtrack (Next Stop Wonderland: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture) ensures aficionados of bossa nova and samba that this one-way ticket will deliver them unto a sublime tropical paradise.
Composer-guitarist extraordinaire Claudio Ragazzi beautifully realizes the film's theme in a four-part original score: "Crossed Paths" and "The Therapist," which feature dreamy scatting in Portuguese by the guitar virtuoso Arto Lindsay; and "O Beijo (The Kiss)," which, like the famous sculpture by Auguste Rodin, is sheer enchantment. With the gentle plucking of strings and the luscious vocalisms of Bebel Gilberto heard in "The Kiss," Ragazzi achieves through music what Rodin conveyed in cast bronze: the impenetrable embrace of lovers who are oblivious to the world around them. Of course, "The Finale" brings resolution to "O Beijo (The Kiss)," complete with cowbells.
However, in this reviewer's opinion, the ethereal voice of Elis Regina, a pioneer in the M?sica Popular Brasileira (MPB) movement, pervades the entire soundtrack to Next Stop Wonderland. Regina's articulation, intonation and pitch are impeccable, whether she's lightly swinging in Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Triste" or trilling like a rare tropical bird in Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil." In the latter song, which translates as "Watercolor of Brazil" but is known the world over simply as "Brazil," Regina draws from warm and cool colors in her vocal palette. As if applying fine brush strokes of paint, she reveals the harmonious relationship among the earth, sea and air. In doing so, she upholds Barroso's original proclamation of samba-exalta??o -- which he introduced in 1939. It was a brand-new musical style embracing his country's magnificent beauty.
No outstanding contemporary Brazilian jazz CD would be complete without the kind of percussion-heavy music that is performed in processions, not just during Carnivale season. The opening track, "Batucada," explicitly celebrates African (especially Angolan) people's significant contribution to Brazil. "Batucada" is performed in English by Bebel Gilberto and Vin?cius Cantu?ria. The former is the daughter of Jo?o Gilberto -- who alongside Jobim and Vin?cius de Moraes founded bossa nova. Bebel Gilberto is a solid star in her own right, possessing a honeyed voice that resonates with mesmerizing elasticity. If her percussive phrasing on "Batucada" does not send one's hips shaking to the beat, one just might need spiritual assistance. No worries there because African-derived spirituality shines through in "Batucada" when Bebel sings joyfully about lighting "a candle for the goddess of the sea." In other words, Iemanj?, a principal orisha in the Candombl? religion, is in the house!
The CD benefits from additional music by Vin?cius Cantu?ria and Bebel Gilberto in a medley of the Jobim classics "One Note Samba"/"The Girl from Ipanema." In Next Stop Wonderland, the medley is performed at a Boston aquarium's gala fund-raiser, where the paths of the main character, Erin Castleton (Hope Davis), and elusive suitor Alan Monteiro (Alan Gelfant) not only intersect but collide.
Listeners who have appreciated Jobim's performance on "One Note Samba" ("Samba De Uma Nota So") or the renditions by Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra in the past will find an extra dose of spice in Cantu?ria and Gilberto's neo-Brazilian version. Bebel's saucy alto peppered over multi-percussion rhythms, including the indigenous berimbau, is an infectious delight.
Their sizzling samba segues into a version of "The Girl from Ipanema" that puts more bounce in the hips than Astrud Gilberto's sashaying version from the '60s. Bebel Gilberto lends her own seductive tonal qualities to a song that the legendary Astrud Gilberto immortalized at the height of bossa nova. In Jobim's narrative about a windswept beauty who is unaware that she has an aphrodisiac effect on the men in her neighborhood, Astrud's devil-may-care vocals seemed to float among the clouds. On the other hand, one could say that her hazy, breathless, early-morning-nasal performance evoked the kind of post-coital cigarette scene in French New Wave films. In stark contrast, Vin?cius Cantu?ria and Bebel Gilberto's nicotine-free, thong-popping Gen X rendition breathes new life into the song while keeping it earthbound. No longer just the object of men's fantasies, this Ipanema woman is secure in her beauty and confident about her erotic power, strutting on the pristine beach. She not only elicits a sigh from every man she passes; she demands it!
Astrud Gilberto is represented on a few songs on Next Stop Wonderland, however. She performs Jobim and Gene Lees' "Corcovado (Quiet Night of Quiet Stars)," sounding languorous rather than inspired by Brazil's enchanted mountain. Then she switches gears in "Stay," turning up the tropical heat by inviting her man to "make sex with music." Her serpentine vocals slither around bossa nova rhythms like the lithe movements of a belly dancer. Vibes and drums playing in counterpoint overtly convey escalating passion, and her febrile, elongated soprano lines simulate a pleasurable response. Astrud's sensuous delivery on this song alone could have caused a second Baby Boom. Though, "Stay" does have a reliable rhythm method.
Scenes from Next Stop Wonderland that feature "Stay" are apropos because they show the melancholy night nurse Erin abandoning her intuition and survival instincts for a smooth-talking former patient who is an ethnomusicologist. The dangerously handsome, bouquet-bearing suitor is Andre de Silva (portrayed with beguiling charm by Jos? Z??iga), who hooks Erin with bossa nova serenades. As "Stay" plays on, his obsession comes into full view in the car scene, where he wins her heart by producing airplane tickets. This scene also delivers one of the film's best pickup lines (and most romantic kisses): Andre, in a slick attempt to coax Erin into allowing him inside her home, tells her that she is the answer to his prayers to sea goddess Iemanj? -- and then he abruptly apologizes for forgetting to bring fried fish as a sacrificial offering to the orisha.
While the CD is lovely from beginning to end, there is a glaring omission: Sarah Vaughan's superb interpretation of the Jobim composition "Wave," which illuminates the black screen while the credits roll. The fact that water figures prominently in Next Stop Wonderland is what makes the omission egregious, let alone that "Sassy" (a sobriquet for the incomparable Vaughan) and Jobim made other beautiful music together -- Brazilian jazz, that is. Here are five reasons that the song "Wave" serves as a metaphor in the film:
1) Scenes on and near the river in Boston and at the aquarium are crucial to the plot.
2) Erin's main suitor, Alan, is a plumber and an aspiring marine biologist.
3) There are direct and oblique references to Iemanj?, the Candombl? religion's goddess of the sea.
4) Figuratively speaking, the main character, Erin, is like a fish out of water when it comes to the dating scene because her longtime co-habitant, an environmental activist, has just dumped her.
5) The place where Erin longs to be -- Brazil -- because it is a reminder of a pleasant, meditative vacation with her late father, is located oceans away.
Without the lush orchestration and sensuality of bossa nova and samba, the movie Next Stop Wonderland would have retained its comedic elements but lost its bittersweet charm, cosmopolitan sophistication and understated sexuality. Standing on its own, the CD is a wonderful portrait of Brazil's musical past and present. It is light and bouncy at one end of the spectrum, bodacious and bottom-heavy at the other end -- but, overall, an authentic Brazilian jazz experience.
Next Stop Wonderland: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture Poster
The fear of loneliness, a hope for romance, the occasional pang of moody nostalgia--it's all found in the light romance of Next Stop Wonderland. But few of Wonderland's plot devices work quite as convincingly at portraying these themes as the movie's soundtrack. Filled with the classic sounds of bossa nova and samba, these songs ooze with the melancholy found in the movie. There's a lot of great stuff here: classic Astrud Gilberto, Coleman Hawkins, Marcus Valle, new interpretations of Jobim. But the unexpected highlight is the original score: Claudio Ragazzi backed by the smooth-as-flan vocals of avant-jazz-guitarist-gone-Jobim-freak Arto Lindsay. Their trio of bossa-nova inspired collaborations sounds as sweet and timeless as the classic originals here. In all, it's one of the best soundtrack collections of 1998, and one you'll be listening to long after you've forgotten its sorta-like-Sleepless in Seattle film counterpart. --Jason VerlindeLatin Music Music CDs
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