In a 1976 concert with American saxophone superstar Stan Getz and Brazilian singer-guitarist João Gilberto, Getz welcomed his partner to the stage with a tone of voice that reveals how stunned he was by his genius. “The most individual singer of our time, a true creator,” he enthused. “His curious ability to sing warmly without vibrato, his impeccable and inimitable rhythmic sense, his intimacy, all this together with his wonderful work with the guitar, make him unique.” If this sounds dry, Miles Davis put it this way: “Gilberto might sound seductive reading aloud from the Wall Street Journal.”
Despite having been very close to João Gilberto for over a decade at that point, on stage and in the studio, Getz will always be mystified by Gilberto: his voice, his subdued tone, his rhythmic sense, the space within the music he created, bossa nova. And in a decade of ever-stronger musical revolutions, Gilberto sat at the center of the quietest of them all, now misperceived as quaint elevator music rather than the sophisticated, subtle paradigm shift that bossa nova actually was, a union between Afro-Brazilian rhythm and intricate Eurocentric harmonic concepts.
In 1964, Getz and Gilberto brought bossa nova to the American masses with their collaborative album. Getz/Gilbertoand then the rest of the world, although they were all far behind what had already happened in Brazil: the modern equivalent of discovering the most popular sound in China is “Old Town Road.” When Gilberto recorded his first solo album, Chega De Saudade, in Brazil in 1959, lit a flame in that country, a revolution in samba that completely transformed Brazilian music. “The children could see themselves in that music,” noted Ruy Castro in his history of the music, Bossa Nova. Gilberto was an enigmatic singer, a subtle rhythmic performer and an understated guitar god, who inspired a new generation to sing and pick up a guitar, while also gratefully ending Brazil’s national obsession with the accordion. At home, Gilberto was an icon. “I owe João Gilberto everything I am today,” said Caetano Veloso. “Even if I were something else and not a musician, I would say that I owe him everything.”
