Popular music is constantly changing, but lately it has been revisiting vintage genres and styles. (Check out what a difference a decade makes.) This may be due in part to the rise of streaming services, which now allow anyone to hear nearly any piece of recorded music in history on demand. Jazz, in particular, has seen a spike thanks to artists like Laufey, whose hit “From The Start” is approaching 1 billion streams on Spotify.
“My songs are old sounds with modern lyrics,” she told Vogue. “A lot of jazz standards have very casual language of that day, and I write with the casual language of my day.”
“From The Start” mines a specific style called bossa nova, a genre that originated in Brazil and quickly swept the globe. The genre, which translates to “new trend” in Portuguese, fused the laid-back textures and harmonic language of early ’60s cool jazz with traditional samba.
There’s no talking about bossa without its most prevalent song: “The Girl From Ipanema.“
The song was written by the genre’s architect, Antônio Carlos Jobim, in 1962 with Portuguese lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes. However, it was a recording with jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and vocalist Astrud Gilberto that made it an international hit. Incredibly, it was Gilberto’s first recording.
She had tagged along with her husband, guitarist João Gilberto, to act as a translator during the recording session in New York City. Producer Creed Taylor requested that English lyrics be recorded on some of the songs along with João’s Portuguese. Astrud, who was only 23 years old, had no professional singing experience, but was the only one who could perform the lyrics in English in that appropriate style, IPM recalls.
“So Astrud stepped up to the microphone, and in what has now become her signature hesitant, breathy, and warm tone, sang the second verse of Jobim’s song ‘Garota de Ipanema’ in English, rebranding it as ‘The Girl from Ipanema,'” they wrote. “It later went on to be an international best seller and Grammy Award winner. And she wasn’t even credited on the original release.”
Check out Gilberto performing the song with Getz and a jazz combo from a 1964 television show:
Her vocal delivery is a hallmark of the bossa nova sound. Most singers use a “non-operatic, slightly nasal vocal style derived from the caboclo folk styles of northeast Brazil,” Masterclass explains. The style is also characterized by slower, flowing tempos that encourage quiet introspection over raucous dancing. The energy is driven by a two-bar rhythmic pattern reminiscent of the clave, though the “bossa clave” is more fluid.
“The Girl From Ipanema” is widely cited as the second-most recorded pop song in history, behind The Beatles’ “Yesterday.” If you’ve been loving the sound of artists like Laufey or Liana Flores, it’s time to dig into bossa nova’s biggest hit. Get the sheet music for “The Girl From Ipanema” and dig into the sound of Brazil:
