Joao Selva Maré Vai Subir

João Gilberto, Luiz Bonfá, Stan Getz, Charlie Byrd, Joe Pass Wes Montgomery, Antonio Carlos Jobim and others.
The Jazz Club series is an attractive addition to the Verve catalogue. With it's modern design and popular choice of repertoire, the Jazz Club is not only opened for Jazz fans, but for everyone that loves good music.

João de Sousa Carvalho was one of the most important Portuguese composers of his generation. L’Angelica was his first opportunity to write a courtly drama after being appointed as music master to the royal princesses, and impressing these noble patrons was a top priority. Setting a libretto by the great poet Metastasio, Carvalho brings out every ounce of dramatic intensity in his richly expressive score, the story of how the beautiful Angelica uses and misuses her seductive charms told in music so captivating that Queen Maria entrusted her composer with key royal commissions thereafter.

One of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time, not to mention bossa nova's finest moment, Getz/Gilberto trumped Jazz Samba by bringing two of bossa nova's greatest innovators - guitarist/singer João Gilberto and composer/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim - to New York to record with Stan Getz. The results were magic. Ever since Jazz Samba, the jazz marketplace had been flooded with bossa nova albums, and the overexposure was beginning to make the music seem like a fad. Getz/Gilberto made bossa nova a permanent part of the jazz landscape not just with its unassailable beauty, but with one of the biggest smash hit singles in jazz history - "The Girl From Ipanema," a Jobim classic sung by João's wife, Astrud Gilberto, who had never performed outside of her own home prior to the recording session…

One of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time, not to mention bossa nova's finest moment, Getz/Gilberto trumped Jazz Samba by bringing two of bossa nova's greatest innovators - guitarist/singer João Gilberto and composer/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim - to New York to record with Stan Getz. The results were magic. Ever since Jazz Samba, the jazz marketplace had been flooded with bossa nova albums, and the overexposure was beginning to make the music seem like a fad. Getz/Gilberto made bossa nova a permanent part of the jazz landscape not just with its unassailable beauty, but with one of the biggest smash hit singles in jazz history - "The Girl From Ipanema"…

Reviewers write in such hyperbole that words are cheapened. When a genuinely transcendent work of art comes along, our praise uses the same vocabulary as that applied to the latest bit of over-hyped junk. I found this recording hypnotic and unique–an incomparable fusion of mature, wise austerity, impeccable technique, controlled passion, bright intelligence and an almost otherworldly sensitivity enabled by, rather than inhibited by, the artist's self-control. If this sounds contradictory, it's because language won't go the step beyond required to communicate the level of achievement Maria Joao Pires has reached at this point.

Duos don’t always have the temperament for the smouldering fires of Franck as well as the sudden whims of Debussy. Dumay and Pires join the select few. They take their time to find Debussy’s opening pulse, but they establish an individual, thoughtful freedom that ‘speaks’ sensuously and assertively. In the finale, they let unexpected passion grow from the central waltz, setting up a brilliant final flourish. Implicit in the initial, floated phrases of the Franck is a sense of the arduous journey to come. Intensity surges up by degrees towards the soul-torturing struggles at the sonata’s centre, and recedes before a gradual return of serenity and confidence.