– If I had to pick just one thing to bring to a deserted island, it would definitively be the Brazilian Getz/Gilberto album, a girlfriend told me the other day. I couldn’t have agreed more. This magic bossa nova album was released in 1964 and is one of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time including songs like the classic “The Girl from Ipanema”. Last year it celebrated its 50th anniversary. “Bossa nova” is a genre of Brazilian music, a lyrical fusion of samba and jazz. The words mean “new trend” and it was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. The music magazine Rolling Stone has chosen the album to be one out of 500 greatest albums of all time.
The great musicians; the Brazilian singer and guitarist João Gilberto and the American jazz saxophonist Stanley Getz are featuring the Brazilian songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim lyrics. “The girl from Ipanema” is sung by João’s wife, Astrud Gilberto, who had never performed outside of her own home before she did this song which made her famous.
Luckily I am not on a deserted island, I am home in Norway where it is cold and rainy at the moment. However by listening to this music I can literally feel the sun at Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro warming me up.
Just play from here and you’ll know what I mean.
