Sunday Morning Vinyl

Record: Getz/Gilberto
Artist: Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto
Released: Verve Records, 1964

This collection of vinyl that once was my father's but now belongs to me is more than just a sentimental link to a man I never knew. What he amassed over twenty years or so now stands as something of an archive of jazz history. It isn't unique -- I'm sure there are thousands of people like me who have collections that were passed down from jazz lovers like my father -- but it's still important.

Some of the records I've already written about -- and lots yet to come -- are obvious classics. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Dave Brubeck, and more are well represented, and if you look at someone's list of the "best jazz records of all-time," you can be sure that ninety percent of them are in my collection. (There is, however, one glaring omission, something I'll write about at some point.)

But it's the unexpected records that have been the most interesting. I'd never heard of Chico Hamilton, for example, until I pulled out his record and discovered it had been recorded twenty minutes from my house.

And there's today's record. I was familiar with Stan Getz, but I knew nothing about Joao Gilberto until I started spinning their collaboration. When I first began this project my idea was that I would take out a record on Sunday morning and write about it in the moment as I listened for the first time. That plan didn't last long. Now I typically listen to the record all week before doing some research and eventually writing about it over the weekend. It's a much deeper experience, and the immersion has been wonderful.

Listening to Getz/Gilberto over the past several days has been interesting. The music has slowly grown on me, becoming more interesting with each passing day. Getz's tenor sax is smooth and relaxing, and Gilberto's lyrics are melodic syllables devoid of meaning, unless you speak Portuguese, but rich in emotion.

This is consistently ranked as one of the best jazz albums of all time, and probably not just because of what we hear on the record. The cover exclaims, "America's top jazz tenor joins Brazil's great young singer in the most exciting album of the year." Indeed, this album began the explosion of bossa nova, not just in the United States but around the world. It's an easy listening genre that fits nicely into the background of a dinner party but is still worthy of a close listen with a set of headphones.

You might not think you know bossa nova, but I assure you that you do. The opening track of this record is one of the most famous songs ever recorded, "The Girl from Ipanema." It's estimated that it has been recorded more times than any pop single save the Beatles' "Yesterday," and I'm certain that everyone reading this could easily hum along and perhaps sing some of the lyrics.

Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes
Each one she passes goes, "Ah."

The song and those lyrics are so ubiquitous that they've become a cliché, but this was the first recording. Joao Gilberto sings the first few verses in Portuguese, but then Astrud Gilberto, his wife and the only bilingual Brazillian in the studio at the time, finishes with the familiar English lyrics. It's a time capsule from another century, but it swings in any era.

The lyrics were written by Vinicius de Moraes (Portuguese) and Norman Gimbel (English). Gimbel's verses aren't direct translations of what Moraes wrote, but they extend the theme. Moraes was inspired by an actual girl, Helô Pinheiro, who often walked past a bar he frequented, drawing the attention -- and whistles -- of the patrons. Years later, Moraes wrote that she was "the paradigm of the young... golden teenage girl, a mixture of flower and mermaid, full of light and grace, the sight of whom is also sad, in that she carries with her, on her route to the sea, the feeling of youth that fades, of the beauty that is not ours alone—it is a gift of life in its beautiful and melancholic constant ebb and flow."

Moraes was not the first to write about fleeting beauty. In William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" he writes to a (possible) love interest, one who possesses beauty so pure that not even time can steal it away. 

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade...

Like Moraes centuries hence, Shakespeare found inspiration in beauty. His muse might have been a young man in London while Moraes's was a teenage girl in Rio de Janeiro, but the message is the same. Some things are timeless; some beauty never fades. 

It's clear, however, that Moraes wasn't familiar with the sonnet, or at least that he wasn't as bold as the Bard. In Shakespeare's closing couplet he reveals the secret behind his inspiration's immortality:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Shakespeare knew then that his sonnet would live forever and keep that moment in time alive, along with his subject's beauty. Four centuries later, we know he was right. Moraes might not have had such aspirations when he wrote his lyrics, but the result has been the same. Thanks to his original lyrics, Gimbel's English addition, and the work here of Getz and both Gilbertos, the girl from Ipanema will always be "Tall and tan and young and lovely." Always.

Side 1
The Girl from Ipanema
Doralice
Para Machucar Meu Coração
Desafinado

Side 2
Corcovado
Só Danço Samba
O Grande Amor
Vivo Sonhando

Record: Focus
Artist: Stan Getz
Released: Verve Records, 1962

I hadn't heard this record before this morning, and even though I'm only on my second listen as I write this, I have to admit that it's already one of my favorite albums for a handful of reasons.

First, it's absolutely beautiful. Stan Getz's tenor saxophone is melodic and sonorous as it pours into every nook and cranny of Eddie Sauter's composition, layering atop the delicate strings of the arrangement and lingering in empty spaces before quietly fading away. It's soothing and hypnotic at times, like on "I Remember When," the opening track on side two, but there's also the pulsating frenzy of "I'm Late, I'm Late" on side one. There's a song here for every mood.

It only took me a few minutes to realize why this was one of my father's favorites. His jazz collection leans heavily towards the big band era, but that's not this. This isn't one horn player fronting a band, this is Stan Getz front and center, with each composition highlighting his tenor sax and giving him room to dance. There are any number of records like that, but what makes this one unique, what must've appealed so much to my father, was the merging of his two musical loves, classical music and jazz. As Getz explained while describing the songs Eddie Sauter wrote, "...more than anything, they show quite clearly that the legitimacy of the past 300 years and the soul of our modern times can be put together and be beautiful."* Indeed.

There are more than a hundred classical records in my father's collection and notebooks filled with musings on the masters. He no doubt appreciated what Getz and Sauter were doing, blending his two loves into something new.

"What I wanted to do," explained Sauter, "was write like a string quartet with space to move things." Incredibly, all Sauter did was write for the strings; he left Getz on his own with the idea that he'd simply improvise over the written material. Obviously it's Getz's improvisation that elevates this record from a good idea to something closer to genius.

The art form of jazz is built on improvisation, which often means one musician is stepping forward to explore some musical ideas for a minute before retreating into the fold. You can see that at any high school jazz concert, but when elite musicians come together the improvisation becomes more of a communal call and response as a riff is floated by one, echoed by another, punctuated by the drummer, then reimagined by the originator. In many ways it feels like music in its highest form.

Years ago my wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary at a Harry Connick, Jr., concert at the Hollywood Bowl. He was playing with a large band, and while the music was amazing, what stayed with me as we walked away was the absolute joy that had flowed from the stage that night. Connick is a showman, and he was obviously there to entertain us, but there were moments when the audience didn't matter. He and his band were all in their element, discovering new nuances in tunes they had played hundreds of times, and when a song would end to thunderous applause, the band members didn't look to us. Instead they first looked to each other, nodding and smiling, a bass player acknowledging something the drummer had done, the piano player appreciating a tangent the saxophonist had just explored. Only after they had celebrated each other would they turn to us and accept our applause. We were clearly secondary, just lucky to be there.

It's this ephemeral nature of jazz and improvisation that has always proved difficult to capture on vinyl. If you watch a band over the course of a few nights, the same song might go in different directions from one show to the next, and the same thing can happen in a studio. Nothing was written here for Getz, so this album is just a record of the musical journeys he took during the three sessions it took to complete the work. In fact, the opening track of the album is significantly longer than any of the others precisely because of the vagaries of improvisation. "The only two takes were judged to be so fresh and so different that, rather than scrap one, they were tacked together to form a single take."

The choice to combine those two takes echoes the larger choice to combine these two genres. I'm sure that some of the records I write about here will go back into their sleeves and rarely if ever see the light of day again. My father was right about this one, though. It'll stay in the rotation.

* All quoted material comes from the text of the liner notes written by Dom Cerulli.

Side 1
I'm Late, I'm Late
Her
Pan

Side 2
I Remember When
Night Rider
Once Upon a Time
A Summer Afternoon