This year marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark, four-time Grammy® Award winning jazz album GETZ/GILBERTO. On May 27, 2014, Verve/Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) celebrates with the release of the single-disc GETZ/GILBERTO: Expanded Edition. It includes a newly remastered version of the jazz/bossa nova classic album in both mono and stereo, with the mono version making its CD debut and the stereo album in its original left-right configuration for the first time since its vinyl release. Additional bonus tracks include the U.S. single versions of “The Girl From Ipanema,” a massive hit, and “Corcovado,” its original B-side.
Released on Verve Records in 1964, GETZ/GILBERTO, produced by label head Creed Taylor, was an international sensation, altering the direction of jazz, pop and the samba itself. It became the focus of a huge bossa nova craze, bringing together Getz (tenor saxophone), with Brazilian stars Joao Gilberto (guitar & vocals) and Antonio Carlos Jobim (composer & pianist), who wrote and co-wrote six of the original eight tracks on the album, as well as Joao’s young wife Astrud Gilberto, who was not scheduled to contribute to the album. When Astrud was spontaneously asked to sing new English lyrics to “The Girl From Ipanema,” her charming, sultry vocals made all the difference. “The Girl From Ipanema” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and went to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. (Astrud is also featured on “Corcovado.”) Other bossa nova classics on the album include “Só Danço Samba,” “Vivo Sonhando,” “O Grande Amor” and “Desafinado.” Backing the main artists is the Brazilian rhythm section of Sebastiao Neto (bass) and Milton Banana (drums).
In 1965, at the seventh annual Grammy® Awards, GETZ/GILBERTO was the first jazz album to win a Grammy® for Album Of The Year, while “The Girl From Ipanema” won Record of the Year. GETZ/GILBERTO also won Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The album’s engineering award was the first Grammy® for the late, legendary Phil Ramone, who recorded the album at his renowned A&R Recording studio.
Verve/UMe’s GETZ/GILBERTO: Expanded Edition has been remastered from the original first-generation master tapes for the first time on CD, restoring the stereo album to its original left-right stereo configuration – previous Verve reissues used second-generation tape copies that flipped the left-right channels – with fidelity unheard in generations, while the original mono album has been remastered for CD and digital for the first time ever. The new release includes a 28-page booklet with an insightful essay by Marc Myers, who contributes a regular music column to the Wall Street Journal, detailed track annotation and rare photos from the album session.
Ranked one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time and Vibe Magazine’s 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century, GETZ/GILBERTO’s wildly addictive charm proved that the bossa nova had legs—that the infectious syncopated rhythm could be leveraged as easily as the blues to captivate listeners, and forever making an everlasting impact on the world of jazz.
