Antonio Carlos Jobim//Desafinado

I was lucky enough to be raised by a guy who had a solid appreciation for a bossa nova. This is why we listened to a lot of Antonio Carlos Jobim, the veritable godfather of the genre, in our house.

Bossa nova is a beautiful melding of samba, folk and imported American jazz. Middle and upper class students and musicians in Rio mixed samba, which sprung from Brazil's impoverished favellas, with cool jazz in the context of a worldwide late 50s/early 60s folk movement. Even if you're unfamiliar with the sound, you've probably heard the classic bossa nova hit, sung by Astrud Gilberto and penned (again) by Jobim, "The Girl From Ipanema."

It's so hard to choose just one Jobim-penned song, as so many of them are phenomenally good. This wasn't one of my favorites as a kid, but at some point in my early 20s, it became one. There are a few different versions. One instrumental features Brazilian jazz legend and frequent Jobim collaborator, Stan Getz. This one is sung by Ella Fitzgerald.



Desafinado.mp3

They'll be no desafinado
When your heart belongs to me completely
And we won't be slightly out of tune,
You'll sing along with me.

Ella Fitzgerald//How High the Moon

A few nights ago, A. and I were waiting for the G train to come in the Metro-Lorimer Station. There was a dude busking. He actually wasn't bad, except when he tried to play this song.

Official announcement! Listen everyone! Although it's a standard, no one can do this song as well as Ella did, so you should really just stop trying. Behold the seven minutes and six seconds of pure amazing delivered by Ella in this live (yes, it was LIVE!) recording. They don't make 'em like the used to anymore. Can you imagine anyone having to apply pitch correction to this?

For a little while, Katy was really into scat singing. She was not the best scat-er (love you, Katy). She thought scating was saying things like "Happy birthday irthday irthday." Ryan played her this song once to teach her about scat singing (note Ella's picture in the wiki entry) and it seemed like she understood for about 5 minutes. Then she went right back to scat-ing. Sometimes you just have to scat.



How High the Moon.mp3

They asked me how I knew my true love was true.