[AotW - Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba]

Since I adore these Getz bossa-nova albums, I desperately wanted to find these legendary first 3 LPs by Joao Gilberto that started it all: "Chega De Saudade" (59), "O Amor, O Sorriso E A Flor" (60) and "Joao Gilberto" (61). They had been reissued in 1990 one one CD with 38 tracks called "LEGENDARY JOAO GILBERTO" (World Pacific CDP-793891-2). It is out of print and reprinted in Korea two years ago. I think is this one also deleted by now. Then after some searching in the web, I noticed that Joao Gilberto sued EMI for issuing this CD without his permission, without paying him. He also accused EMI for bad remastering (I have no problem and I treasure this CD rolleyes.gif ). All this is metnioned in a series of postings as per the link http://tinyurl.com/4rdlj4 . The main messages are in portuguese and I cannot totally understand them. If Gato could be of help I would be grateful.

Moreover, the Laurindo Almeida Braziliance records (I think there are two) are also very good although are more jazz-ish than boss nova. I also read (I think in the Mosaic Gillespie box or in Gillespie's recent biography) that Lalo Shifrin's "The New Continent" suite composed for Dizzy Gillespie and performed in Monterey in September 1962 could have been the initiator of the bossa nova craze but was not then timely released on record. It was released by UA some years later. Check the following for this LP: http://orgyinrhythm.blogspot.com/2008/01/d...-continent.html

Best,

Alex

Hi, Alex

Sorry about the slow response to your request.

I had a look at the postings you mentioned. The portuguese part consists of three articles from the "O Globo" newspaper.

The first one, entitled "To whom does the voice belong" reports that João Gilberto is sueing EMI, basically for three reasons. 1) They have reissued his early recordings without paying him. 2) They have authorized the use of his recording of "Coisa mais linda" in a TV commercial without consulting him, and 3) The remastering severely distorts the original recording. For the last point, three expert's reports are quoted which confirm that there are significant differences between the original vinyl and the remastered CD version.

The second article starts of by mentioning that EMI has treated the re-issue of Milton Nascimento's early recordings quite differently. It then reports the outcome of the court case. The judge condemned EMI to pay both for the re-issued songs and for the use in the TV commercial. On the question of the remastering the judge agrees that there have been significant alterations, but concludes that these differences would not be noticed by the average listener and lifts the ban on the sale of the CD that had been previously imposed. The article comments that this kind of logic takes away the artist's right do decide what happens to his/her work.

The third article is an extract from the comment by Caetano Veloso (a big name in Brazilian popular music), who wrote one of the expert's reports that support the case that significant changes where made. Caetano praises João Gilberto and his contribution to Brazilian music, clasifies the remastering desastrous and calls for the restoration of the original beauty of the recordings.

As far as the first three LPs by João Gilberto are concerned, I remember that when I signed up for this site, there was a rule about not posting links to download sites. I hope it's not against the rules to mention that all three albums are available for download, posted by people who convert original, out-of-print vinyl to mp3. I won't post the urls. But if you're interested drop me a line and I'll send them to you.

Gato

[AotW - Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba]

I like this album okay, but I've never understood how THIS album was the one that kicked off the samba craze; didn't that honor go to Getz/Gilberto? If not, it should have.

Getz/Gilberto was 1964. Bit hard to start a craze two years after.

MG

To start off with, I don't think it makes a lot of difference to the enjoyment of the music, when exactly it started off and who deserves the credit for having it started. But I thought it important to add a Brazilian perspective to the discussion.

I live currently in Rio de Janeiro (Ipanema, to be precise), and this is the year when the 50th birthday of bossa nova is celebrated. That puts the birthday into the year 1958. In that year Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes teamed up for the first time and produced the 13-track album "Canção do Amor Demais". The album was released under the name of Elizeth Cardoso, who sang all the songs. Later, in August of the same year, Jõao Gilberto released a single record of "Chega de Saudade" one of the songs on the aformentioned album. (The B side was "Bim Bom," a composition by João himself.) His his style of singing, which sounded more like melodic speaking, and the way he accompanied himself on the guitar are the reasons why this recording of "Chega de Saudade" is generally considered as the first bossa nova record.

But I notice that the original poster didn't talk about the start of bossa nova but about what kicked off the bossa nova craze. Obviously, before you can get crazy about something, that something has to exist. How long does it take for a new thing to turn into a craze? Your guess is as good as mine. But for me the Getz/Gilberto album is a more valid candidate because it includes some of the original players.

Gato