Chega de saudade, Joãozinho

Last Saturday João Gilberto passed away at age 88, of natural causes, at his home in Rio de Janeiro. Contrary to his reputation of being a recluse and despite his age, only four days earlier he had gone out for dinner with his partner and his attorney, a rather central figure in his life of late.

Since his passing, the outpour of love and recognition from all over the world for the singer and guitarist has been overwhelming. Part of it is due to João's public visibility thanks to his success in the USA in the early 1960s—I'm sure I'm not the only one to play Getz/Gilberto, a sensational record, from track #2 onwards, skipping “The Girl from Ipanema”.

But beyond fame—the one aspect Brazil's current president was able to acknowledge—what made João special? In jazz terms, he was to bossa nova what Charlie Parker was to bebop.

Zoot greets Getz

Zoot Sims, Tião Neto, Stan Getz at A&R Studios, NYC. March 18/19, 1963
(Photo by Jim Marshall. Source: JazzTimes.)

Zoot Sims (left) and Stan Getz (right) had a common history beginning in the summer of 1947 in a rehearsal band for which Gene Roland wrote the arrangements. This eight-piece group led by trumpet player Tommy DeCarlo and also comprising Herbie Steward and Jimmy Giuffre was spotted by Ralph Burns and eventually led to Woody Herman's signing the saxes minus Giuffre—Herman had already signed Serge Chaloff for the bari chair.

The drums of bossa nova

Marketing has gone truly global. At least for those of us living in the Western world and glued to a screen with access to the internet, there are trends that everybody seem to subscribe to, at least for a minute.

Right this minute, there are two trends leading to Brazil, one the biggest in the world, the other just a musical footnote. The latter is about the 50th anniversary of the release of Getz/Gilberto (never mind all the empty blurbs — it is a masterpiece), which may give the impression that bossa-nova is all Brazil ever had to offer musically (it isn't) or even that it didn't really blossom till the Americans got involved in it.

Again, publicity-wise that may be true, but musically nothing surpasses João Gilberto's first three albums recorded between 1959 and 1961 back in Brazil. And even for the Americans, things didn't really take off until, after a few trials on their own, they got the Brazilians involved, which made the difference between great (like Stan Getz's album with Charlie Byrd) and a masterpiece.

Listening to Jazz/Samba and Getz/Gilberto, there's one huge difference between the two albums. Whereas for the former it seemed necessary to have two drummers to reproduce Brazilian rhythms (and the percussion gets quite heavy), there's only one drummer on the latter, and what he does is a wonder of subtlety and dynamics. It's Washington D.C. v. Rio de Janeiro; Deppenschmidt & Reichenbach v. Banana.

Milton Banana (c. 1979)

When I first read the name Milton Banana as the drummer in Getz/Gilberto, I thought it was a joke. It was actually the alias of Antônio de Souza (1935-1998), who not only played on Getz/Gilberto, but also on João Gilberto's first LP, which established what we know as bossa. He was the original bossa-nova drummer.

João Gilberto at 80

Tomorrow João Gilberto celebrates his 80th birthday. It would be hard to overstate his importance in popular music of the 20th century. As a singer and as guitarist he's the owner of a very distinctive touch, one of those rare virtuosos whose abilities pass as simple and efortless, concealing hours of almost obsessive work in his quest for perfection. Even if this is a matter of personal taste, anyone is likely to appreciate the pure magic that his music emanates. I really wish he has a good birthday and that he is in peace, above all the tired press reports about his "reclusive personality" and other frankly strange issues (like the FaceBook profile that may or may not have been really his).

Regarding FaceBook, I still keep buggering on with my little campaign:

The rest of us will have to keep waiting for an official reissue of his first three LPs. As I have explained before, Gilberto and EMI – owners of the masters – have been horn-locked in the Brazilian courts for the best part of 15 years, which has prevented the world from enjoying the artist's first three albums. Right before The Legendary... / O Mito was removed from the market it was printed as two separate CDs by Time Life in Spain, as part of a collection of classic EMI-owned jazz albums. That reissue comes up every once in a while in bargain bins and discount shops in London and even in the US.

For impatient listeners, él!/Cherry Records, a British label, has published two interesting reissues of the first two albums, which is completely legal in the EU, something that some on the other side of the pond fail to grasp. There's still plenty to argue about this, but in the EU the mechanical rights for those two LPs, and soon for the third, are public domain.

Meanwhile, in the courts things don't seem to be moving much. I found a few reports at Terra Magazine, a Brazilian on-line mag. This is the summary:

• The lawsuit is expected to be solved in 2011, by the High Court in Brazilia, but obviously not in time for Gilberto's 80th birthday.
• Despite rumours stating otherwise, EMI says the original masters are in Brazil.
• Gilberto has listened to the masters but he's not recognized them as the originals. He'd be ready to work on a new remaster.
• According to Ricardo Garcia (technician appointed by EMI) reverb (echo) was added for a false stereo effect on the original mono recordings from the album Chega de Saudade, and high frequencies were forced up by equalization.
• According to Paulo Jobim, Antonio Carlos's son, who's involved in the case (on Gilberto's side), in the CD master strings and drums were favoured over guitar and vocals, and too much equalization has changed the timbre of the singer.
• Paulo Jobim was present at the original sessions. Apparently, Gilberto made, and was granted, the unprecendeted request of having two microphones, one for the guitar, one for the voice. He was a stinking perfectionist, even though the recordings were made live, with no overdubbing.
• Apparently, when they were going to do The Legendary... / O Mito, EMI/Odeon tried to obtain Gilberto's authorization to reissue the LPs on CD through composer Nelson Motta, but never got a reply.
• Caetano Veloso, and advisor to Gilberto's lawyers, argues that a single CD detracts value from the product and, eventually, the artist.
• Gilberto also has denounced the use of one of his songs for a commercial without his permission

By the look of it, if money is not an issue – a big "if", given EMI's situation – there shouldn't be much problem to get to a solution. I do think that Veloso's argument for a reissue in 3 separate CDs is not realistic. For starters all the music fits in a single CD, and the original LPs, all under the 30-minute mark hardly justify the format he suggests. In this day an age, a CD really has to be special to merit some attention from the potential buyers. Some heavy marketing will be needed too – and whoever has to do it will long for the missed anniversaries, the 50th of bossa in 2008/9 and now his 80th birthday.

Here's hoping that it happens soon.

And happy birthday!

Thursday's pill: Brazilliance

Lazy clichés say of Brazilliance that it was bossa nova, chapter 0. As it happens, bossa nova it ain't. There's Brazilian as well as jazz in it, true, but not so much to do with what Jobim and Gilberto would create in the late 1950s, in Brazil.

For those who don't know these records, Brazilliance, volumes I & II, are two CDs with music recorded in 1953 and 1958 respectively for Californian label Pacific Jazz, originally under Brazilian emigré Laurindo Almeida's leadership, with Bud Shank on alto, and either Harry Babasin (I) or Gary Peacock (II) on bass, and Roy Harte (I) or Chuck Flores (II) on drums.

I guess that the "bossa nova" tag is attached to this music because a) it sounds like a neat guess, and b) it could be a good hook for quite a number of people. Problem is that a) it's not really bossa, and b) you will always have people discouraged by the bossa tag who could have enjoyed the music, as well as the disappointed bossa lovers.

This is more a mixture of baião and other Brazilian rhythms with straight 4/4 jazz, part of the mild experimentation that took place in 1950s Californian jazz, but you will not find any of the "stuttering rhythms" that came out of João Gilberto's guitar and vocals, even though some of this music seems to be asking for it, like the first part of "Inquietação" (listen on YouTube). Rhythmically it's much simpler, and harmonically it keeps firmly within the jazz frame of the moment. In any case, what really matters is that it sounds fresh, it's music for warm summer sunsets, with light, swinging rhythms, and the unamplified sound of Almeida's guitar tempering its whole atmosphere.

This CDs (covers pictured) were issued as World Pacific/Capitol-EMI CDP 7 96339 2 and CDP 7 96102 2, respectively. They can also be heard on Spotify and YouTube.