Stan Getz and João Gilberto – Getz/Gilberto – 1963

The story of Astrud Gilberto is kind of a sad one. The Girl From Ipanema sold 5 million copies, unintentionally making the 22-year-old an overnight superstar. What should have been a story of an extraordinary singer’s success – turns out that her naivete and the male-dominated music industry left her broken and exploited.

Renowned audio engineer Phil Ramone was at the helm during the recording.  “Astrud was in the control room when Norm [Gimbel] came in with the English lyrics,” Ramone told JazzWax in 2010. “Producer Creed Taylor said he wanted to get the song done right away and looked around the room. Astrud volunteered, saying she could sing in English. Creed said, ‘Great.’ Astrud wasn’t a professional singer, but she was the only victim sitting there that night.”

The track was an instant hit, but Astrud received no credit on the original vinyl.  The album went on to be on the Billboard charts for 90+ weeks and won 4 Grammys that year including Album of the Year. And it was a success greatly because of her vocals, but she was hardly paid a cent. In fact, Getz attempted to not pay her at all.  In the end, João was paid about $23,000 for his work on the album. Astrud only what the American musicians’ syndicate paid for a night of session work: $120. Getz walked away with an estimated million dollars and, of course, claimed it was his idea to have Astrud on the track to begin with.

And it didn’t stop there. It was during the following tour for the album when João and Astrud’s marriage fell apart due after João’s infidelity. Then there was Stan Getz taking advantage of the situation and having an affair with Astrud. The press, being full of men, ate it up with one review that said she “evoked every straight man’s daydream of an exotic, submissive woman in a bikini”.

Unfortunately, this kind of treatment followed her throughout her entire career.  Objectification and bad contracts followed her throughout.  She always maintained that she did not receive credit or recompense for her production work. She would often find that her music had been repackaged and sold in new compilation forms; when she appeared on the radio show Fresh Air in 1978, host Terry Gross presented her with one of these Best Of albums and Gilberto said, “What’s that? I have never seen that before.”

Over her career, she released sixteen studio albums, two live albums, and several compilations. She received the Latin Jazz USA Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1992 and was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 2002.

Apparently in her retirement, she lived in isolation through her damaged psyche and mistrust in people.  All reports say her voice was as beautiful as ever, but her spirits broken. She past away this year on June 5th in her home at age 83. She deserves to be honored as a singer who brought joy to the world with her beautiful voice in song. 

Back in 2021 I stumbled onto a classic.  I’m sure I’d heard it before at one point in time or another, but it never entered my psyche until that summer.  This album along with the Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd album Jazz Samba released the previous year started the bossa nova craze in the US at the time.  And they both kinda took over my music listening pretty much anytime I was outside in the summer heat that year.

Sure. Everyone knows “Girl From Ipanema.”  It’s the track that launched Astrud Gilberto’s career (and we’ll get into that in a bit,) but it’s the entirety of the album that has you sipping your whisky sour and bobbing your head to the chill, syncopated rhythms.  From the understated vocals of Juão Gilberto or the compositions and piano of Antonio Carlos Jobim, cool and laid back is definitely the name of the game here.  And everyone was on their game.  Stan Getz’s sax slides in all smooth and velvety.  João’s intricate guitar work creates an enchanting musical landscape. The delicate interplay between the musicians is a testament to their extraordinary talent and deep musical connection. It is laid back but dang does it feel good to move to this record.

AllMusic.com – 4 stars

James Lavelle and DJ Shadow are unequal partners in UNKLE, with the former providing the concept and the latter providing music, which naturally overshadows the concept, since the only clear concept -- apart from futuristic sound effects, video-game samples, and merging trip-hop with rock -- is collaborating with a variety of musicians, from superstars to cult favorites Kool G Rap, Alice Temple, and Mark Hollis (who provides uncredited piano on "Chaos"). Since Shadow's prime gift is for instrumentals, the prospect of him collaborating with vocalists is more intriguing than enticing, and Psyence Fiction is appropriately divided between brilliance and failed experiments. Shadow and Lavelle aren't breaking new territory here -- beneath the harder rock edge, full-fledged songs, and occasional melodicism, the album stays on the course Endtroducing... set. Shadow isn't given room to run wild with his soundscapes, and only a couple of cuts, such as the explosive opener, "Guns Blazing," equal the sonic collages of his debut. Initially, that may be a disappointment, but UNKLE gains momentum on repeated listens. Portions of the record still sound a little awkward -- Mike D's contribution suffers primarily from recycled Hello Nasty rhyme schemes -- yet those moments are overshadowed by Shadow's imagination and unpredictable highlights, such as Temple's chilly "Bloodstain" or Badly Drawn Boy's claustrophobic "Nursery Rhyme," as well as the masterstrokes fronted by Richard Ashcroft (a sweeping, neo-symphonic "Lonely Soul") and Thom Yorke (the moody "Rabbit in Your Headlights"). These moments might not add up to an overpowering record, but in some ways Psyence Fiction is something better -- a superstar project that doesn't play it safe and actually has its share of rich, rewarding music.
AllMusic.com Stephen Thomas Erlewine