What a pity that Frank
Sinatra had to wait so long for his only
recorded salute to Brazil’s lone Chopinesque songwriter, the
superbly-gifted Antonio Carlos Jobim. Sinatra’s path-blazing
bossa nova projects hold the distinction of being the only two
albums he ever dedicated to a single composer’s body of work.
by: Joe
Lopes
Part Two: The American Side
With so much feedback
received from readers concerning my previous comments about Brazil’s musical
polyglots, I decided to write a second, more expansive sequel devoted to the
American side of this entertaining yet shamefully under-reported subject.
My original piece was
prompted by a critique from Brazzil contributor John Fitzpatrick of
Caetano Veloso’s latest CD release A Foreign Sound, wherein the veteran
pop star from Bahia, one of the co-founders in the late 1960s of the musically
eclectic movement known as tropicalismo, performed cover versions of
everything from vintage Irving Berlin to more recent Stevie Wonder fare.
Garnering mixed reviews
for his efforts, Mr. Veloso can rest assured that he had succeeded in producing,
at the very least, a fairly respectable try at American pop standards—filtered,
naturally, through his own Northeastern Brazilian ethos.
It certainly wasn’t his
first crack at this artistically enticing musical genre, nor will it be his
last. Not surprisingly, Caetano was not the only Brazilian performer to have
contributed an English-language recording of what basically amounted to recycled
"oldies but goldies."
Among the multitude of
songs covered over the years by acknowledged native singers were those perpetrated
by colleagues Milton Nascimento, Ed Motta, Marisa Monte, Roberto Carlos, Ivan
Lins, Sandy & Junior, Gal Costa, and dozens more—some good, some
bad, many only so-so, and leaving much to be desired in the pronunciation
department.
Not that these artists’
poor English ability was, whether by design or intent, the deciding factor
in their relative lack of success with these hits. Essentially, and in view
of the global-wide pervasiveness of MTV, hip-hop, rap, world-beat, and other
cross-cultural influences, it was all a matter of style and mood.
Conversely, there are
a representative number of Brazilian-inspired themes done by an equally imposing
international assemblage of musicians, among them Sarah Vaughan, George Duke,
Al Jarreau, Sting, Susannah McCorkle, Sadao Watanabe, Pat Metheny, Lee Ritenour,
Hendrik Meurkens, and many others, that might also fit this same bill.
Looking back at recent
music history, we can note that as the market for bossa nova abounded
in ever so plentiful a manner in the U.S. during the early to mid-sixties—and
not only among the jazz and pop music set—it was small wonder that by
the end of the decade the efficacy of the entire convoluted American obsession
with the craze had come in for a well-merited questioning.
Even Elvis Presley, the
self-styled King of Rock & Roll, relented at one point in his hip-swaying
career and released, in 1963, a 45-rpm quickie of a bogus Brazilian novelty
number, "Bossa Nova, Baby," composed by the songwriting team of
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
On the disc’s B-side was
the cabaret/nightclub staple "Witchcraft," which only goes to show
how far some record producers were willing to gamble in order to cater to
mass audience appeal.
The Carioca Meets the
Chairman
To the rescue came what
has been described as the single most outstanding, and most underrated, treatment
of the form in the entire popular music canon.
For better or worse, the
award for the top-of-the-list, A-Number-One, best Brazilian covers album ever
would be shared (in this writer’s opinion) by two back-to-back releases on
the Reprise label, both memorializing the pan-cosmic pairing of the Chairman
of the Board, American pop idol Frank Sinatra, with Carioca composer Tom Jobim;
the albums were astutely differentiated by the titles Francis Albert Sinatra
& Antonio Carlos Jobim, from 1967, and Sinatra & Company,
recorded in 1969 but not released until ’71.
These late-in-the-day
nods to the core bossa repertory employed two different arrangers for
the timeless Jobim tunes: the Prussian-born Claus Ogerman for Francis Albert
& Antonio Carlos, and the Brazilian Eumir Deodato for Sinatra.
They featured Ol’ Blue Eyes smartly swinging along in relaxed, cocktail-lounge
fashion to some of the Rio master’s most memorable melodies.
The original 1967 LP proved
especially noteworthy but was pretty much over before one knew it, barely
clocking in at a miserly thirty minutes. But what a brilliant half hour of
music making it was!
Particularly revelatory
was the interpretation of "The Girl from Ipanema," in which Frank’s
trademark conversational-style phrasing is effortlessly supported by Tom’s
own impeccably conveyed word-painting, in an infuriatingly abbreviated vocal
blend more reminiscent of a test run for Sinatra’s much later Duets
work on Capitol, than an estimable ensemble display.
The other Jobim tracks,
spaced out evenly between the two recordings, included "Dindi,"
"Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars," "Meditation," "How
Insensitive," "Drinking Water" ("Água de Beber"),
"Someone to Light up My Life," "Triste," "Don’t Ever
Go Away" ("Por Causa de Você"), "This Happy Madness"
("Estrada Branca"), "Wave," and "One Note Samba."
Sinatra even managed some
peculiarly authentic-sounding Brazilian Portuguese on "Drinking Water,"
although a momentary croak had somehow crept into that once unassailable throat
of his, evidence no doubt of too many late nights spent with the infamous
Rat Pack; Jobim provided the sensitive guitar accompaniment.
On Sinatra & Company,
the Carioca’s enduring classics collided with more mundane material
from the period, particularly the contemporary "Close to You," written
by Hal David-Burt Bacharach and popularized by Karen Carpenter, "Leaving
on a Jet Plane" and "My Sweet Lady," both the work of John
Denver, and "Bein’ Green" (Joe Raposo), originally introduced on
TV’s Sesame Street by Muppet character Kermit the Frog.
It was not, I venture
to say, the sort of thing fervent Sinatra fans were looking for from the great
Francis Albert back then.
In retrospect, though,
his restrained, almost laid-back approach to Jobim’s music was, in many ways,
a triumph of art and attitude (reverential and respectful) over the prevailing
pop styles (rock and psychedelia) of the time.
Pay close attention to
the way Frank lingers over the phrase, "Oh, what was I to do, what can
one do, when a love affair is over," from the song "How Insensitive"
on Francis Albert & Antonio Carlos; how he invests it with just
the right measure of regret and longing, what in Portuguese is called saudade,
as he shares his bittersweet thoughts of a lost love and life lived on the
edge with the gentle, soothing tones of the composer, ruminating as well in
his native tongue, "Ah, por quê você foi falso assim,
assim tão desalmado?" (Why were you so false to me, and so
heartless?).
The linguistic nuances
both artists draw from these key lines suffuse the song with psychological
underpinnings. In addition, the sheer level of mutual understanding present,
indicated by the simultaneous outpouring of their romantic plight—voiced,
of course, in each singer’s respective lyrical language—gives the number
an added layer of intellectual sophistication and weight evidently undetected
until now.
With stylistic fluency
and complete mastery of the idiom, Frank Sinatra accomplished more than a
generation ago what Caetano Veloso intrinsically tried to do today, but had
ultimately failed to grasp.
Sinatra and Veloso’s bucking
of the official pop trends could easily have had dire career consequences,
even for such established vocal talents as themselves. The end result, however,
will be that one’s committed efforts are oftentimes misunderstood, so that
they can either be lovingly praised well after the fact, as in Frank’s case,
or critically panned, as in Caetano’s.
It’s all in how and when
one’s work is perceived, and by whom—sometimes by reviewers, but always
by your (hopefully) forgiving record-purchasing peers.
What a pity, then, that
the Hoboken-born singer-actor had to wait so long for his only recorded salute
to Brazil’s lone Chopinesque songwriter, the superbly-gifted Antonio Carlos
Jobim; it was, by most accounts, a once-in-a-lifetime linking of like, transcontinental
minds.
All in all, Frank Sinatra’s
path-blazing bossa nova projects hold the deserved distinction of being
the only two albums he ever dedicated to a single composer’s body of work.
Along Came Ella…
After this long-departed
high watermark, whatever covers album anyone else subsequently tried to disseminate
was, to my ears, disappointingly (and quite justifiably) met with less than
half-hearted enthusiasm.
Indeed, many of these
sincere but otherwise fatuous attempts at recapturing the essence of the Brazilian
musical soul have all suffered ungraciously by comparison.
One of the more curious
examples of this was the intriguingly titled, double-long play album of Ella
Abraça Jobim: Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Antonio Carlos Jobim Song Book,
compiled between the years 1980 and 1981, and put out by Pablo Records.
A natural, one would think,
for this sort of extended overview, what with her acclaimed series launched
several decades earlier for producer Norman Granz, on the Verve label, of
the songbooks of such popular composers as Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Harold
Arlen, Duke Ellington, and Johnny Mercer, the sublime Ella was already long
past her prime when she stepped into the Group IV Studios in Hollywood, California,
for her turn at the bashful Brazilian’s oeuvres.
Unfortunately for the
diva, even the presence of such experienced sidemen as Joe Pass on electric
guitar, Oscar Castro-Neves on acoustic guitar, Clark Terry on trumpet, Zoot
Sims on saxophone, and Paulinho da Costa on percussion, could not turn back
the proverbial time clock on her obviously declining vocal powers. Sadly enough,
it was insufficient to reclaim Ella’s glory years before the mikes.
Number after number seamlessly
whiz by, while Ella wobbles and scats her heart away on the likes of "Dreamer"
("Vivo Sonhando"), "Triste," "He’s a Carioca"
("Ele é Carioca"), "One Note Samba," and others;
but they only make one pine for the intelligence and grace she once brought
to such classics as George and Ira Gershwin’s "Oh, Lady Be Good,"
Rodgers and Hart’s "There’s A Small Hotel," and Cole Porter’s "Easy
to Love."
While not totally wasteful
of her well-documented resources, it was still a poorly rendered testimony
to the glorious American jazz singer’s previous recorded output, and far from
her best work, when contrasted with her stellar achievements for Verve.
The reissued and digitally
re-mastered 1991 compact disc version, now on one CD, lacked two of the original
double-album’s numbers, "Don’t Ever Go Away" and "Song of the
Jet" ("Samba do Avião"), due to maximum playing-time
limits.
It was deserving of a
failing grade for that miscalculation alone.
…As Dionne Loses
Her Way
Another case in point,
and a valiant but unfulfilling affair to boot, came about in 1994 from noted
pop singer Dionne Warwick.
As one of her generation’s
most celebrated musical artists, with scores of top tens scattered all over
the entertainment charts throughout the entire length of the sixties, the
divine Dionne practically defined the terms "adult-contemporary"
and "middle-of-the-road"—sounds we too often associate with
New Age, soft rock, and the like—long before they ever came into regular
usage.
She was fondly remembered,
too, for having had what could genuinely be construed as several quasi-Brazilian
based successes, specifically in the elegant and classy songs of David and
Bacharach, "Walk On By," "I Say a Little Prayer," and
"Do You Know the Way to San José?"
But the years had not
been kind to her, either, so much so that by the time she got around to laying
down an actual album of bossa nova and samba-tinged tunes, an uncharacteristic
throatiness had developed and became the main distraction of her Aquarela
do Brasil on Arista Records.
The opening medley of
Jobim songs, which included umpteenth versions of "How Insensitive,"
"Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars," "Wave," and "The Waters
of March," began promisingly enough, with the preceding "Retrato
em Preto e Branco" ("Portrait in Black and White") setting
the right romantic mood.
But again, the recently
acquired dryness to the Warwick sound, as well as a pronounced and disturbing
rasp, did little to compensate for the almost total absence of her former
lushness.
Dionne’s own composition,
"Virou Areia" ("Back to Sand"), with Portuguese lyrics
by Lenine and Braulia Tavares, and the Dori Caymmi number, "Flower of
Bahia," are only a few of the handful of standouts, as is the cool jazz
favorite, "Captives of the Heart," newly-composed for her by ex-mentor
and musical guiding light, Burt Bacharach.
Regrettably, no amount
of digital wizardry could possibly overcome, or even disguise, the glaring
reality that by the mid-nineties Dionne Warwick had pretty much lost most
of her lovely singing voice.
This is not to say that
advanced age in the entertainment world can be a major deterrent in the planning
of an all-Brazilian covers album or any other record, for that matter. Certainly,
Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, and many important older artists have proven
to be the notable exceptions to that rule.
However, given the fact
that plain old insight and artistry can sometimes help to patch over growing
vocal deficiencies, it cannot be overlooked that subtlety and timing, as demonstrated
by Sinatra, can be just as important as a rich and powerful vocal presentation,
if not more so.
In any case, less is decidedly
more, especially where it concerns Música Popular Brasileira. It’s
a valuable and much-needed lesson that many of today’s so-called "pop
stars"—and, by implication, their record producers—could most
assuredly profit from.
Joe Lopes, a naturalized American citizen born in Brazil, was raised and
educated in New York, where he worked for many years in the financial sector.
In 1996, he moved to Brazil with his Brazilian wife and daughters. In January
2001, he returned to the U.S. and now resides in North Carolina with his
family. He is a lover of all types of music, especially opera and jazz,
as well as an incurable fan of classic and contemporary films. You can email
your comments to JosmarLopes@msn.com.
Copyright
© 2004 by Josmar F. Lopes
