A Antonio Neves

Issued nearly a year after Jobim's death, this three-CD set is ground zero, the place to start if you don't have any Jobim in your collection or for anyone who wants a single package of his multifaceted art. The set encompasses not only Jobim's own sporadic work for Verve from 1963 until his final 1994 Carnegie Hall concert and the two A&M albums of 1967 and 1970, but also sessions led by Stan Getz, Joao, and Astrud Gilberto in which Jobim appeared as a sideman. Guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves, who selected the music for this set, follows a unique game plan, devoting disc one to vocal renditions of Jobim's songs, disc two to instrumental versions, and disc three to multiple comparisons of a few Jobim standards by different performers…

The beloved Brazilian guitar legend's resumé is so chock-full of varied musical experiences – jazz, pop, film scoring, ten years with Sergio Mendes – that his brilliant solo efforts can't help but include informal homages to different eras of his life. He starts out here getting straight to the heart of the matter, paying tribute to his fellow countryman Antonio Carlos Jobim with a self-contained plucky guitar/vocal duet of "Waters of March," which includes spirited scat passages. He moves into samba mode for a lively medley of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker tunes, "Groovin' High/Whispering," deferring to Toots Thielemans' always engaging harmonica for melody as he harmonizes gently; then they switch roles.

Jobim made his last Brazilian concert appearance – and the penultimate one of his life – at this warm, star-studded affair in which American jazz musicians jetted down to the Free Jazz Festival in Sao Paulo to pay effusive homage. The miracle is how easily the jazzers were able to capture the yearning essence of Jobim's idiom without really compromising their own distinct styles. Thus, Joe Henderson welds his trademark unpredictable flurries into the cool tenor sax bossa nova tradition, Shirley Horn does "Once I Loved" in her own inimitable manner that matches the mood of the song perfectly, Jon Hendricks' scatting fits the samba like a glove. The pianists go somewhat outside the idiom – Herbie Hancock's modern complexity, Gonzalo Rubalcaba's technical fireworks laced with Afro-Cuban salsa – but they stay within their orbits around the Jobim sun.

In some ways, this is a strategic retreat for Antonio Carlos Jobim after the classical departures of the '70s – a retrospective of past triumphs, including some of the most trod-upon standards ("Ipanema," "Desafinado," "One-Note Samba," etc.), with Claus Ogerman again at hand. But these are thoughtful retoolings, some subtle, some radical, ranging in backing from a lonely piano to elaborate yet sensitive Ogerman orchestral flights that cram more complexity than ever into the spaces (listen to his beguilingly involved take on "Double Rainbow") with only a few overbearing faux pas. Jobim's own vocals sound increasingly casual in temperament as he serves them up in an unpredictable mixture of Portuguese, English and scat.

Antonio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina - Elis & Tom (1974) {Verve Originals Series, B0011296-02 rel 2008}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 215 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 92 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 1974, 2008 Philips / Verve / Universal | B0011296-02
Jazz / Bossa Nova / Brazilian Jazz / MPB

An incredible album – and a landmark session that showed that the bossa nova was still alive and well in the 1970s! The album pairs the breathy jazz vocals of Elis Regina with the booze-soaked warmth of Antonio Carlos Jobim – in a set of spare arrangements that feature a lot of touches from Cesar Carmargo Mariano, whose work on Elis Regina's 70s sessions is still the stuff of legend! Elis' vocals dominate, but when Tom comes in, the result is even more spectacular – especially given the generally light instrumentation used on most tracks – which means that the vocals carry the bulk of the sound on the set!