João Gilberto Essentials

João Gilberto Essentials

Brazil's João Gilberto radically transformed popular music beginning in 1958 with "Chega de saudade" (No More Blues), the first true example of bossa nova, or "new style". He sang "Tom" Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes' song in a soft, flat vibrato-free voice over nylon-stringed guitar chords and distilled samba rhythms, a formula he rarely varied over the decades. Jobim would provide Gilberto with his core repertoire, standards that include "Desafinado" (Off-Key) and "Wave". His 1964 single with saxophonist Stan Getz, "The Girl From Ipanema", sung by spouse Astrud Gilberto, opened the floodgates for countless bossa-jazz crossovers.

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