Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes – ah
When she walks, she’s like a samba that swings so cool and sways so gentle…
– Songwriters: N. Gimbel / V. de Moraes / A.C. Jobim
– Performed by Astrud Gilberto
IT’S BEEN rather unpleasant to say the least; the pandemic is still very much around and seems to have no plans of going away.
Meanwhile in “I Am Iloilo City” today marks the transition from General Community Quarantine or GCQ to Modified General Community Quarantine or MGCQ.
Let’s not be hasty and go dancing in the streets as we yet have to see a signed memo from the virus COVID-19 that it’s not going to infect people anymore.
And we segue to something nice and romantic, perhaps whimsical, a song that epitomizes and introduced the world to a musical genre from Brazil…bossa nova and samba.
For the uninitiated, from that free online encyclopedia a.k.a. the internet:
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music, which was developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s and is today one of the best-known Brazilian music styles abroad. The phrase bossa nova means literally “new trend” or “new wave”.
A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially among young musicians and college students.
Samba is a Brazilian music genre and dance style, with its roots in Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions, particularly of Angola and Congo, through the samba de roda genre of the north-eastern Brazilian state of Bahia, from which it derived. Although there were various forms of samba in Brazil with popular rhythms originated from drumming, samba as a music genre has its origins in Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of Brazil.
Samba is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival. Considered one of the most popular Brazilian cultural expressions, samba has become an icon of Brazilian national identity.
Yes, it’s all about jazz fusion and this particular song we’re talking about today is perhaps the most iconic and most recognized in the world. Listening to the first strains or lines…“tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking” brings to mind jazz, samba and bossa nova.
“Garota de Ipanema” (“The Girl from Ipanema”) is a Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song. It was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s and won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. English lyrics were written later by Norman Gimbel.
The Stan Getz recording featuring the vocal debut of Astrud Gilberto became an international hit. This version had been shortened from the version on the album Getz/Gilberto (recorded in March 1963, released in March 1964) which had also included the Portuguese lyrics sung by Astrud’s husband João Gilberto.
What adds to the romance of the song is that there was really a “Girl from Ipanema” and she was not just a figment of the songwriters’ imagination and how she inspired the songwriters was in typical Brazilian whimsical fashion.
The song was inspired by Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (now known as Helô Pinheiro), a 17-year-old girl living on Montenegro Street in Ipanema. Daily, she would stroll past the Veloso bar-café, not just to the beach but in the everyday course of her life. She would sometimes enter the bar to buy cigarettes for her mother and leave to the sound of wolf-whistles. In the winter of 1962, the composers saw the girl pass by the bar. Since the song became popular, she has become a celebrity.
The legacy of “The Girl from Ipanema” was acknowledged by multiple aspects of the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics held in Rio de Janeiro: the Olympic and Paralympic mascots were respectively named Vinicius and Tom after the song’s co-writers by a public vote, while the Olympics’ opening ceremony featured a segment themed around the song and the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer. Jobim’s grandson Daniel performed the song during the segment, which also featured an appearance by Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen.
“The Girl from Ipanema” has always been associated with Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto. In fact most people would swear she’s that “girl” and this is how it came to be:
Jazz legend Stan Getz recorded the Getz/Gilberto album with João Gilberto, who is considered the father of Bossa Nova. In the studio, they convinced his wife Astrud, who had never sung a recorded note, to sing the English lyrics. The original choice as vocalist was Sarah Vaughan, but when Gilberto heard the English translation, he decided that Astrud should sing it. Her subtle vocals added a nuance to the song that worked surprisingly well with the music.
This won the 1964 Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Jazz Performance and Album of the Year./PN
