Girl From Ipanema

In the U.S. we often associate Brazilian music with bossa nova, samba or maybe the frevo bands that play during Carnival. In the 1950s and 60s bossa nova became a world-wide sensation and even made its way onto the pop charts in America. Bossa nova was cool, hipster chic, and happenin among jazz enthusiasts.

As Patricia and I visited friends and family in São Paulo, I never missed a chance to ask if they knew who Astrud Gilberto was because it was Astrud who introduced me to the sounds of Brazilian music. I was shocked to discover that few Paulistas remembered who Astrud Gilberto was, although the name Gilberto is legendary in Brazilian music.

When I mentioned the name Gilberto, many people came back with the names João and Babel his daughter by another famous Brazilian singer Miusha. João Gilberto, most famously, is the father of bossa nova and one of the most influencial Jazz musicians in the world.

Astrud Gilberto was a female vocalist who sang with Stan Getz and brought bossa nova to America in the early 60s. Her sultry rendition of the song Girl From Ipanema sang with Antonio Carlos Jobim won her an American Grammy in the 60s. Astrud's voice was like nothing else I'd ever heard. Her heart rendering melancholy still had a thoughtful and sophisticated edge next to the pop lyric and a jazz nostalgia.

My mother Corrine had few record albums in her collection however, as a young boy, two of them stuck out in my mind -- Astrud Gilberto's Girl From Ipanema and another from Herb Alpert & Tijuana Bass with a beautiful woman naked in a mountain of whipped cream. As a young boy that album cover was the most erotic thing I saw before I could comprehend what erotic or sex was.

Next to her international sensation hit, Astrud is best recognized for singing Fly Me to the Moon (which she also recorded as a duet with Frank Sinatra), Day by Day, Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Queit Stars) and Brazilian Tapestry.

Astrud married João Gilberto in 1959 but they were divorced in the mid-sixties. Astrud is less known in Brazil but became an ambassador for bossa nova because she sang vocals in both English and Brazilian Portuguese at a time when American radio stations would not play any music unless the lyrics were in English.

In addition to Brazilian Portuguese, Astrud recorded Brazilian bossa nova in English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Japanese giving her a world-wide audience few artists gain.

Just as it happened here in the U.S. with Free Jazz, there was a backlash to bossa nova and Brazilian jazz in the late 60s and early 70s. The group of artists centered in Rio had become regarded as a egg-head musical elite and with the rebellion of the times, and the imposition of Martial Law, lines were drawn in the sand. You couldn't be successful and comfortable and not directly confront the military leaders without being seen as supporting its brutal oppression. Musicians like Roberto Carlos and João Gilberto were criticized for being priviledged and not taking a strong political stance against the military dictatorship that consumed Brazilian life.

During much of this time, Astrud was not in Brazil and was, instead, living in the U.S. recording and working internationally. This is probably why Astrud is largely forgotten by mainstream culture in Brazil. If you say Astrud was living in New York during much of the political turmoil of the 60s, Brazilian resent that she didn't come back and fight for freedom in her country.

Besides her five year marriage to João, few defining characteristics came to shape Astrud career. First, João had convinced her to sing in studio recording however she had extreme stage fright which prevented her from performing in night clubs and that limited her public visibility. When João and Astrud moved to the United States in the early 60s, the jazz singer attempted to overcome her stage fears by taking classes with Stella Adler in New York.

Astrud's acting classes with Adler lead to roles in two films Get Yourself a College Girl, The Hanged Man, and the sound track for Down with Love. In 1982 she returned to performing in nightclubs and I saw her at the Jazz Cafe in London. In 1992 she received the Latin Jazz USA Award for Lifetime Achievement and was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 2002.