Short Takes

Jorge da Silva

With renewed emphasis on the music of Antônio Carlos Jobim coming from all directions, three newly released CDs from the Warner Archives Series make a timely and noteworthy arrival for Brazilian music fans. These three CDs cover a remarkably creative period in Jobim's career, and help to put his creative direction into perspective. With so much emphasis being given to the newly released A Twist of Jobim, and the countless tribute recordings that have been released over the past two years, I thought that it might be a good idea to remember where all the inspiration came from in the first place.

In 1964, both Jobim and Brazil were undergoing major changes. His phenomenal recording success with Stan Getz and João and Astrud Gilberto in New York heralded the rise of bossa nova in the US with "The Girl From Ipanema" even as his homeland plunged into dictatorship. Dissolved from his early alliance with Polygram Brasil (a relationship that he would later return to for his Passarim recording) and allied with producer and conductor Claus Ogerman, Jobim once again set his sights on New York City to produce the recordings contained within these three CDs.

The first of these, The Composer, is a chronicle of his work from 1965-1967, years that expanded Jobim's international stature as a songwriter. The 28 tracks are taken from three recordings and a wealth of previously unreleased material to stand in marked contrast to his earlier Polygram releases in both content and approach. One of these, A Certain Mr. Jobim (now discontinued, and one of our all-time favorites), was recorded scant days after completing his work with Frank Sinatra, and it carries an air of spontaneity and unfettered joy; elements curiously absent from his set with Old Blue Eyes. With a wonderful mix of instrumental and vocal favorites like "She's a Carioca," "Surfboard," "Zingaro" and "Photograph," The Composer moves from song to song with all the grace of a seagull in flight.

Various projects kept Jobim busy through the early 70s, during which time he recorded several albums for CTI & A&M, including Tide, Stone Flower, and Wave. These recordings focused on his use of stronger orchestral settings, and incorporated many of the top US sidemen of the day, including bassist Ron Carter (from Miles Davis), Tonight Show drummer Bobby Rosengarden, reedman Joe Farrell, and percussionist Airto Moreira, who both would soon join with Chick Corea to form "Return To Forever" and flutist Hubert Laws, who was already well on his way to establishing a strong presence with popular jazz under the direction of Creed Taylor. Through all of this, Claus Ogerman remained close, personally and professionally.

By 1976, Jobim had become a household word in the US and around the world, and his Urubu from that year reunites his music with Ogerman and Warner to celebrate a joining of Bossa with MPB and to illuminate a new focus: the ecology. Urubu was inspired by Jobim's intimate ties to nature with songs like "Correnteza" (The Stream), "Boto" (Porpoise) and "Lígia," and it continues to invite comparisons to the finest works of other 20th Century composers, including George Gershwin and Heitor Villa-Lobos . It was also different. Here Jobim moved away from his pop music sense to record an album that blurs the lines between jazz and classical, between the traditional folk styles of the Brazilian northeast and the bossa rhythms Jobim helped to create. Critically acclaimed, Jobim would waste no time getting back onto more familiar ground.

The culmination of Jobim's influence during this period coincided with a new decade and the 1980 release of Terra Brasilis (Brazilian Land). Jobim, who once observed that he enjoyed writing in English "because it is a well-stolen language," sheds new light on "Dreamer," "Sabiá" and "Dindi." This opus also contains several beautifully crafted instrumentals among its 20 tracks including "Maria" and "Estrada do Sol", here presented by Jobim's solo piano. And "Você Vai Ver" (You'll See) with daughter Ana pre-dates Jobim's musical vision for his ultimate phase, the gentle unisons and close harmonies of The New Band seven years later.

Individually, each of these three albums convey Jobim's talent in extraordinary ways. Taken together, they represent 15 years of creative growth from melodic adolescence to musical maturity and Bob Blumenthal's liner notes provide a personal insight into Jobim and his music.