Bohemian Weirdness: how João Gilberto defined the world of Bossa Nova
How many fields have a family that defines them? There may be many that you have to truly be in the know before you’re privy to, but in terms of Bossa Nova, there’s one family name that reigns supreme. Gilberto. You have Astrud Gilberto, the voice of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’. Bebel Gilberto, one of the leading lights of the genre, along with her mother Miucha. The name is no accident. All three of them were family to João Gilberto from Brazil, the father of modern Bossa Nova.
Astrud was his first wife, and Miucha his second, with whom he had Bebel. Their family history has the same passion and beauty that marks the greatest moments of the genre they’re most associated with. It begins right from the off with João discovering the jazz music of Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra. A neighbour of his in his native Juazeiro played the records out loud, much to the chagrin of Gilberto’s shopkeeper father.
What made it worse for the elder Gilberto was how much his son wanted to sing along, and playing music became more interesting to him than the prospect of carrying on the family business. The final straw was João receiving a guitar from his grandfather as a gift, and by the late 1940s, he had moved to Rio to pursue a full-on career as a singer. Guitar became his full-on obsession, rarely stopping his playing even after he became a sensation in his native country.
This makes sense as it was his way of playing Samba music, of transcribing it to a single acoustic guitar, that gave the world the bossa nova rhythm we know today. That loping shuffle over minor chords and his morose, expressive singing defined a genre for decades to come.
By the early 1960s, he was a sensation in the jazz world and had crossed over from his native Brazil to the United States, where he struck up a friendship with American saxophonist Stan Getz. The two of them went into the studio in 1963 to make a record that would change their lives forever.
The crossover appeal of Bossa Nova had already been spotted by Getz and Gilberto, so it was decided that the songs with Portuguese lyrics would also be translated into English. Unfortunately, none of the professional musicians accompanying them had the right voice or were comfortable enough singing in English to fit the bill.
However, Gilberto’s wife, Astrud, had been joining them in the studio and was fluent in English. Despite never singing professionally in her entire life, she sang a take, and her whispered, subtle vocal style suited one song perfectly, ‘The Girl From Ipanema’.
‘…Ipanema’ would go on to be a colossal, worldwide smash. One of those hits like ‘Rapper’s Delight’ or ‘Rock Around the Clock’ doesn’t just make an artist a worldwide concern, but a genre too. The song has since gone on to be one of the most covered and recorded songs ever, with versions by Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt and Frank Sinatra popping up in the next couple of years.
The Gilbertos’ careers as mainstream concerns begin here, with Astrid popping up in films and releasing records throughout the rest of the 1960s and João leading one of the most celebrated careers in Bossa Nova until his retirement from music in 2008.
