33. Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba (1962)

1. Desafinado*

2. Samba Dees Days

3. O Pato

4. Samba Triste *

5. Samba de Uma Nota So*

6. E Luxo So

7. Bahia 

A-

So the inclusion of this album in the Book raises some questions. On the one hand, it's a beautiful piece of work that helped introduce the Western World to the wonderful music that is Bossa Nova. On the other hand, its inclusion kind of shows the bias that this book has towards Western artists, and to American and British artists in particular. I mean, surely there were great Bossa Nova albums before this. I know for a fact there were - Elizete Cardoso's Cancao do Amor Demais is a beautiful piece of work, for example. But I guess rather than stretching out and including a Brazilian album it made more sense to just include this one. It shows the central contradiction in the Book - on the one hand, it wants to be a greatest albums compilation, but on the other hand it's trying to be a comprehensive overview of the pop canon that shows the development of popular music for the last seventy years. I suppose within those parameters it does pretty OK, but there are some choices that bother me (don't even get me started on the inexplicable album choices for Bjork).

Anyway, putting all that aside this is a pretty great album. The only real misstep is the inclusion of the Charlie Byrd original "Samba Dees Days", which can't hold a candle to the compositions by Brazilian composers. And really, the music is very beautiful. Stan Getz is a natural fit for this sort of music and would of course go on to play on Getz/Gilberto, one of the prettiest albums ever recorded. Charlie Byrd is a solid enough guitar player, but if I'm being honest I find his playing slightly stiff and his tone a little metallic for this sort of music. He occasionally lapses into bluesy phrases and scales that don't quite mesh, and I would have preferred if he'd played a nylon string guitar. The rhythm section is pretty solid, and the impact of the introduction of traditional Brazilian rhythms in a jazz pop format can't really be overstated.

That said, I can't think of much else to say. This is a very pretty, very well-played, and very well-produced album. It's an incredibly classy listen. There's a degree of refinement and melancholia on this album that transports you to another world - one of quiet nights of quiet stars, perhaps? It's not hard to see how this album blew so many minds when it came out. It sounds like it was recorded on another planet - one of a gentle tristesse spent in the company of a drink with an umbrella in it, as one reflects on the highs and lows of life.

Anyway it's very pretty. And it meets my criteria for a great album - complex, rhythmically and harmonically challenging music that still manages to be a nice listen.