Years, possibly a decade ago, I pulled Astrud Gilberto’s Take Me To Aruanda from a Gilles Peterson play-list. I can’t remember if it was one for Cock Happy! – the club where Acid Jazz was if not born, then nurtured – or one for his later Talkin’ Loud, Saying Something Sunday sessions at Camden’s Dingwalls. It was in amongst stuff like Walter Wanderley`s cover of Marcos Valle’s Crickets Sing For Anamaria, and Earl Grant’s version of The House Of Bamboo. I’d just completed a long interview with Joe Davis, the founder of Far Out Recordings, and the man behind London’s late `80s / early `90s Brazilian jazz dance boom. When I eventually found a copy, and played it, I realized that I must have heard it a 100 times. A well established “easy-listening” classic, it’s the sort of thing, if you’re a child of the `60s, that you might find lurking in your parents’ or grandparents’ record collection. A swinging sing-along sojourn to a Shangri-La, paradise, a promised land. 

“Aruanda”, however, wasn’t / isn’t Astrud’s only “modern” dance-floor hit. Trying to take things in chronological order, her 1971 team up with tenor saxophonist, Stanley Turrentine, was a total triumph – where the track, Brazilian Tapestry, is a mix of smooth bossa nova, and more frantic fusion. Boasting a modal, Love Supreme–like b-line, and a racing electric rhythm guitar, it’s sleek and sophisticated. A million, trillion miles from any Tiki lounge cheese. 

1972’s Now, contains a cracking cover of Jorge Ben’s Take It Easy My Brother Charlie. Arranged by Eumir Deodato, and with percussion expertly shaken by the genius that is Airto Moreira, it’s driven by Mike Longo’s playful piano, Billy Cobham’s tough, but understated drums, and Eumir’s own summery strum. 

Astrud’s 1977 comeback, That Girl From Ipanema, produced by vibraphone virtuoso, and Salsoul Orchestra El Supremo, Vince Montana Jr., holds the marvelous Black Magic, something I’m sure that I coped from a Daniele Baldelli funky / Cosmic mixtape. It was one of those tunes that you could search for and find for pennies, once it had been ID`d on DJHistory, in the online forum’s initial early 2000s heyday. A piece of not jazz, but pop / disco, where Astrud is spinning, comparing her womanly wiles to a witch’s spell. The album’s incredible sessions featured 7 guitarists. One of them gifts Ms. Gilberto a great axe solo. Forum frequent caller, Todd Terje, did an edit. 

The same long-player also houses the sublime So Far Away, a heartbroken duet with Chet Baker, which Astrud is quoted as saying was a personal career highpoint. Chet courts the Miles Davis comparisons that helped drive him to dope, by providing some haunting Sketches Of Spain horn, and the lyrics are pure poetry, painting a lost love affair with lines like “the way ocean hugs the edges of the sky, as close as we could be.”

I can’t recall if “Aruanda” was a tune that Joe Davis, and subsequently Gilles, “broke” in London. I suspect not, `cos on the 12 that I’ve got it’s flipped by Astrud’s timeless take on The Girl From Ipanema – the soft acoustic samba that marked the birth of bossa nova, and was largely responsible for the genre’s worldwide blossom and bloom. 

Written by 2 men, in their 30s and 50s, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, in a bar full of wolf-whistling middle-aged men, all eyeing, staring at a young woman as she strolled to a Rio beach, I guess the song could easily be perceived as sexist. However, Moraes, or O Poetinha, The Little Poet’s words, I think, are more a mediation on both beauty and the fleeting nature of youth. It’s made pretty clear he knows that, to the girl, he’s invisible. Sung in Portuguese, by Astrud’s then husband, João, who was 10 years her senior, it is a longing lament. A squeezed out resigned sigh as the teenager of the title goes by. Astrud’s countering English language narrator is voyeur-ing the voyeur, watching the watcher, her smile more wry. Stan Getz’s clipped saxophone and Jobim’s piano also add their eavesdropping voices, before the piece gently fades, as that hourglass figure finally disappears in the distance.  

Notes

The whole story of Astrud Gilberto and The Girl From Ipanema, unfortunately smacks of sexism, and exploitation. History would have it that Astrud’s involvement in the song’s recording was pure serendipity – that she was only present at the sessions because she was married to João. Saxophonist Stan Getz and producer Creed Taylor have attempted to assume all credit for Astrud’s English verses. It was their idea, they “discovered” her, yeah, while she in fact frequently performed live with her husband. The pair infamously prevented Astrud from receiving any royalties. 

Then there was Astrud’s alleged affair with Getz, which was elevated to a scandal by the Brazilian press. This seems hard to believe since Getz treated her, and, as so many would have it, everyone else like shit. In the meantime, João was carrying on with the singer, Miúcha, who’d go on to become his second wife – which, of course, was perfectly OK. 

Astrud toured with Getz – she said that due to the divorce – and, of course, no royalties – with a son to support, she desperately needed the cash. She also continued to work with Creed for a while, and his label, CTI. 

It would be fairly safe to assume that 1960s Brazil was not an epicentre of any kind of equality, but to be honest, something, a whole lot, here certainly wasn’t right. 

To get to the bottom of what went on you’d have to be a proper investigative journalist, with a decent expense account, rather than a hobby blogger. This is why it’s taken me so long to put fingers to keys. I don’t want to reinforce rumours, legends / myths that maybe only based on gossip, but I would really like to mark Astrud’s passing, and pay my respects. 

I love this photo. Something about it is so innocent. Happy, optimistic. Astrud’s autograph makes it all the more poignant.