THE STORY OF A SONG: Stan Getz with Astrud & Joao Gilberto - The Girl from Ipanema (1964)

 (written by Antonio Carlos Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes; English lyric by Norman Gimbel)

    America’s love affair with the Brazilian bossa nova and samba began with the soundtrack to the 1958 Brazilian film Black Orpheus, shifted to high gear with the 1962 album Jazz Samba (featuring Jobim’s song Desafinado) teaming tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd, and reached a feverish peak with The Girl from Ipanema. Don’t let the tepid cover versions by a thousand cocktail-lounge combos cause you to lose appreciation for the intoxicating beauty of the original, which holds up as an enduring classic.

Stan Getz, born on February 2, 1927, in Philadelphia, began playing in New York bands at age fifteen, and after playing with Jack Teagarden and Bob Chester, first made an impression on the jazz world with Stan Kenton’s orchestra in 1944-1945. After stints with Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey, it was with Woody Herman’s “Second Herd” in 1947-1949 that Getz fully emerged as a star on such indelible performances as Early Autumn and Four Brothers. Striking out on his own after 1949, Getz worked prolifically until reaching a vast new audience through his samba collaboration with Byrd.

The album Getz/Gilberto brought him together with the great Brazilian composer Jobim himself, and one of that nation’s finest jazz guitarists and vocalists, Joao Gilberto. Antonio Carlos Jobim was born in Rio de Janeiro on January 25, 1927 —less than a week before Getz. A classically trained composer and also a guitarist and pianist, Jobim began recording in 1954, and became nationally known in his home country with Joao’s 1958 hit single of Jobim’s Chega de Saudade. 

Jobim’s collaboration with Luiz Bonfa and Vinicius de Moraes on the Black Orpheus soundtrack carried his reputation internationally. Inspired by traditional Brazilian music, French composer Claude Debussy, and the American cool-jazz sounds of Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, Jobim crafted a hybrid sound that was dubbed bossa nova, or “new wave.” Jobim included an instrumental treatment of The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema) on his 1963 Verve album The Composer of  Desafinado Plays; the song’s greatest success lay directly ahead.

Joao Gilberto’s lovely young wife Astrud entered the picture unexpectedly; as the story goes, the others saw her playfully singing the song to herself, and were so charmed by her sweet, unaffected style that she was called upon to sing the main English vocal after Joao sang the first verse in Portuguese. The melody is ravishingly lovely, the lyrics filled with poignant longing, Getz’s sax soloing is warm and inviting, the Brazilian rhythm gentle and enveloping, and Astrud’s soft, sexy vocal pulls the listener right in. Little wonder that both single and album became smash hits, as Girl from Ipanema won the Grammy for Record of the Year and Getz/Gilberto took top honors as Album of the Year.

The real girl from Ipanema was named Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto. Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes were regular patrons of the Veloso Bar in the Ipanema neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, and sitting at tables near the sidewalk, they admired the beauty of the graceful teenager, who lived nearby and would come to the bar to purchase cigarettes for her mother. Inspired by her loveliness, Jobim composed the melody; his friend’s first attempt at lyrics (titled “The Girl That Passes By”) was unsatisfactory, but a second version proved the winner. Heloisa didn’t learn about the song she inspired until two-and-a-half years later. Jobim attended her wedding in 1966; Heloisa went on to become a model and TV presenter.

(Other personnel: Tommy Williams on bass; Milton Banana on drums).

Recorded on March 18 & 19, 1963; chart debut June 6, 1964 (#5 peak on Billboard); reached #29 in England