Global Courant
The artist was 83 years old. The theme composed by Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim has more than one explanation.
Astrud Gilberto died this Tuesday at the age of 83. In addition to being the wife of one of the fathers of bossa nova, Joao Gilberto, she became known worldwide for recording Garota de Ipanema, along with her husband and saxophonist Stan Getz, on the 1964 album Getz / Gilberto.
Astrud Gilberto was born in Salvador de Bahía (Brazil) on March 29, 1940, to a Brazilian mother and a German father, for which they decided to name her after a German goddess.
His mother played various instruments and his father was a language teacher. Astrud she grew up surrounded by music and learned, in addition to Portuguese and Spanish, French, Italian, English and Japanese.
At the age of 19, she married the guitarist Joao Gilberto, from whom she would take her last name and whom she accompanied in various performances, including a concert at the Faculty of Architecture in Rio de Janeiro.
Astrud Gilberto toured the world thanks to “Garota de Ipanema”. Photo EFE
Instant success
In 1963, during a recording by her husband in New York, she met saxophonist Stan Getz, who was looking for a voice for the English song Garota de Ipanema. The success was absolute and Astrud Gilberto -who was not yet a professional singer-, his natural charm and his whispering voice with that song, included on the Getz / Gilberto album, would make Brazilian rhythm triumph in the United States.
There are those who say that when he separated from Gilberto and faced a tour with Stan Getz there would also have been a love story between them.
“The Girl from Ipanema” Astrud Gilberto, João Gilberto and Stan Getz
The song had originally been recorded in 1962, with lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes and music by Antonio Carlos Jobim, better known as Tom Jobim.
Thus, the young woman became part of the legend of the “bossa nova” with a song that brought together Stan Getz with Jobim and another of the fathers of the genre, Joao Gilberto.
Astrud Gilberto sang for years with saxophonist Stan Getz.
the story of the song
Legend has it that Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim created Garota de Ipanema, the most performed Brazilian song in the world, one afternoon, when they were drinking in a bar and saw a beautiful young woman on her way to the beach. And by the way, the scene added poetry to the bossa nova superhit.
Although it may not have been so true that Vinicius and Tom wrote the song while spying on the “sweet sway” of the hips of a young Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto when she went to the beach or ran errands for her parents.
Helô Pinheiro, the young woman who in 1962 inspired Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes to compose the “Girl from Ipanema”. EFE/Sebastião Moreira
With the opening of the Vinicius de Moraes Digital Collection (a company created by the artist’s heirs), that idyllic image that presented both composers in the Bar do Veloso, on the old Montenegro street in Ipanema (today Vinicius de Moraes), in Rio de Janeiro, will remain in the memory of a past that, in truth, did not have so much to do with reality.
The Brazilian poet and composer Vinicius de Moraes wrote the lyrics of “Garota de Ipanema”. Photo EFE
And the more than 11,000 archives that document the creative history of the Brazilian poet, composer, diplomat and playwright seem to show that not everything was as we thought until now.
It is that the “declassified” material reveals that De Moraes, considered one of the fathers of “bossa nova”, was not one of those who write a hit on a napkin, and that, on the contrary, he used to review, redo, edit and correct all his literary and musical production several times before offering the final version.
“In the files on his intellectual production we can see that Vinicius was a man who was a worker of the word. And for this reason a poem or a song could take years before being completed,” Julia Moraes, the composer’s granddaughter, explained to EFE. responsible for the initiative and director of VM Cultural, the company created by the artist’s heirs.
Tom Jobim, the author of the music for “Garota de Ipanema”.
“Many believe that he composed Garota de Ipanema sitting in a bar, drinking his beer on a sunny afternoon and talking with Tom Jobim. But in reality it was not like that. The song has several versions in which it is possible to see an intense search for words and rhymes. He changes several words, questions himself and perfects his lyrical voice through constant and prolonged work,” he said.
WD
