Album: 'Getz/Gilberto', by Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto (1964)

Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto
Verve

The credit for starting the 1960s boom in bossa nova - a more melodious and less rhythmically assertive form of samba - goes to guitarist Charlie Byrd, who returned to the US from a concert tour of South America in 1961 with recordings of Brazilian music, among them works by Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Byrd played the records to saxophonist Stan Getz, and they decided to make a jazz album showcasing some of the tunes: the result was 1962's Jazz Samba, which featured the hit single Desafinado. The next year, Getz recorded Jazz Samba Encore! with Jobim on piano and Brazilian Luiz Bonfa on guitar.

That too was a hit, and Getz scheduled more sessions with Jobim, bringing in Gilberto on guitar and vocals: Getz/Gilberto, recorded in March 1963 but only released a year later, became one of the biggest albums in the history of jazz, and a multiple Grammy winner.

In 1965 it picked up the awards for best album of the year (the first jazz album to be so honoured and the last until Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters in 2008), best jazz instrumental album (although all the tracks feature vocals), and best-engineered album.

The single, Jobim's The Girl from Ipanema, got the Grammy for record of the year, and made an overnight star of Joao's then wife, Astrud, who sang an English translation by Norman Gimbel of the Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius De Moraes. She also sang on the single's B side, another Jobim tune called Corcovado, better known as Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars, also edited down from a longer version on the album. Both edits emphasise her singing at Joao's expense. On the Ipanema single, his vocal is missing entirely, and on Corcovado only one of the verses he sang was retained. The single versions of both songs are usually included as bonus tracks on CD reissues of the album.