Hi forumfriends: Y'all are enriching my marriage. How? Tonight at BB my wife spotted two Antonio Carlos Jobim CDs and said, "Will you please find out which of these is better?" And by that she meant for me to ask YOU. How cool is that? So here are the candidates: Antonio Carlos Jobim Verve Jazz Masters 13 (1994) Antonio Carlos Jobim's Finest Hour (2000) And yep, we already have Getz/Gilberto (redbook). (And we'll probably pick up "The Composer of Desafinado Plays" at some point, too.) Thanks for your hep.
In terms of song selection, I like the "Finest Hour" disc better. "The Composer Of Desafinado Plays" is a great album and the remaster sounds wonderful. Not as easy to find but worth seeking out is the Japanese remaster of "Wave" which comes in a mini LP jacket. And Gardo, let us know if you get lucky with the wife after you play her some Jobim. Both rhythmically infectious and romantic, is the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.
LOL. Gilberto/Getz is already a family, uh, favorite. Looks like it's time to expand the repertoire. (Why no smilie for blushes?) I sense a new thread: Make-out Music for Marrieds.
One must add the wonderful 1964 Verve Lp ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM: THE COMPOSER OF DESAFINADO, Plays"[Verve V6/8547]. The originator, looking from a dusty distance as stateside jazzcats took his book and read verbatim...at once liberating and, knowing his own doom, he must have felt like his unique style was at once unique in pop history and gone, like the wind...as it was.... ED
The Composer Plays, Wave, and Stone Flower are all exceptional. I also have (though a bit harder to find - English import WEA lable) The Wonderful World of Antonio Carlos Jobim and A Certain Mr. Jobim and enjoy them both as well, especially the latter.
Antonio Carlos Jobim: Composer Hi, I strongly suggest you get the Warner Archives release "Antonio Carlos Jobim: Composer" (not to be confused with the Verve disc "The Composer Of Desafinado Plays"). The Warner Archives Disc contains almost everything Jobim recorded for Warner Bros. in the 1960s (28 tracks in total), including all of the tracks from "A Certain Mr. Jobim" and "The Wonderful World Of Antonio Carlos Jobim". If you already have "Getz/Gilberto", this is definately the one to get. BTW, it's a steal at $9.99. PS. There's also one Jobim disc which should be avoided: "Terra Brasilis" from 1980 has all the hits, but the "revised" upbeat arrangements no longer have the subtle flavor of the originals. Arne
Re: Antonio Carlos Jobim: Composer Oh my Arne...So sorry to call you on the above statement but, "Terra Brasilis" is one of my "Desert Island" CD's! It is full of some of Claus Ogerman's most beautiful arrangements and while Jobim may NOT have been in his "best" voice on this album...There is still something magical and gourgous about this entire album! If you're a Jobim fan...DON'T MISS THIS!
Chris, perhaps I was being a bit too hard on "Terra Brasilis". It all comes from the bad remaster , I think - my CD is a japanese pressing from (?) 1993 or so. The whole thing sounds like someone overdubbed an orchestral CD with a voice track from a home-recorded compact cassette. Think I'm gonna pull out the 2-LP set tonight and see if the original is better. BTW, I know I once liked it, since I own both the LPs and the CD... Arne
Arne As a real fan of "Terra Brasilis" I have the 2-record set, the Japanese CD, and the Warner Archives US CD version. As I type this I'm listening to the Japanese CD (WPCP-4370) on my computer and the sound is awesome! You MUST have bought a bad pressing!?! BEAUTIFUL music, my friend!
Gardo, The Sinatra/Jobim disk is a must purchase. The two collections you ask about are both good overviews of what they overview, from what I can tell, but the "finest hour" disk covers more ground. That's not to say its necessarily better, just that it selects from a wider period of time. You might want to check out "The Man from Ipanema" 3 cd set. Disk one is collaborations, disk 2 instrumentals, and 3 a selection of various performers doing beautiful things with the work (these are set up so you can hear more than one famous version by more than one famous performer programmed one after the other). BMG has got it for $15.99. My sense is that for a few bucks more you'll be getting more or less what either of the single disks gives you plus a bunch more. This way, when your done making out, you'll have a nice booklet to read and you can develop rich and complex critical opinions about the deep nature of Jobim's art. It's a shame, but you can't make love all the time (though I've always thought that this particular music makes it seem as if you can, or that some how everything you do while its playing is a kind of making love--and isn't reading in bed and listening with the wife and extension of making love anyway?). lschwart
Gardo, I also agree with the other fellow forum members that say to buy the "Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim" That CD is ANOTHER of my Desert Island discs! If I have any complaints with this album/CD is that it's sadly too short! I wish there was more on it! Of course, there are a few rare songs of Sinatra/Jobim that are mostly unreleased (Brazil Only) of the songs "Bonita" and "Sabia" which I recently bought on a VERY rare 2-record set call "The Sinatra/Jobim Sessions"!
Another disc to check out is Getz/Gilberto 2: Recorded Live at Carnegie Hall. The bonus tracks featuring Astrud Gilberto are quite lovely.
Dear lschwart, Just who do you think you are? You're very free with the lovemaking advice. For the record, or the CD, or the SACD, I can in fact make love all the time. ALL THE TIME. I just can't make a living by making love all the time, because I'm a law-abiding citizen (mostly) so I can't take money for my awesome, well, "favors" AND because, well, on the advice of counsel that's all I'll say at this time. To paraphrase the immortal Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, deep and complex critical opinions are DOODOO. But I CAN make a living with them. Ain't life grand? I'd rather be able to write songs like Jobim, but instead all I can do is chatter (in the critical cold). As for your final question, that depends on what "isn't" means, "doesn't" "it"? But thanks for the recommendations, seriously, folks. And keep 'em, uh, coming. Gotta cut back on the caffeine. or not.
Making love all the time. Gardo, Never meant to imply that you did not have the *capacity* to make love all the time. I was merely referring to the constraints applied to your (and all our) doing so. But back at you: deep and complex critical opinions are NOT NECESSARILY doodoo. At least the process of arriving at them can be a kind of making love (or should be). Now that I've said that, I wonder if it makes criticism a kind of pornography and teaching prostitution. Maybe you make a more interesting living than you think! Of course, in any case, there's making love and there's making love, and I'd rather write the songs than develop elaborate opinions about them too. At least I can sing them and listen to them with my wife and then, well, see you own earlier posts...... By the way, don't give up caffeine. The are all liars, the ones who recommend this. All of them. Liars. With a trembling hand at the local Starbucks, lschwart
Re: Making love all the time. Easy, buddy. That's MARY ANNE WITH THE SHAKY HAND, not lschwart with the shaky hand. Unless the Jobim doesn't do its work, I guess. But I digress. I appreciate the retraction of your attack on my virility. Now I can go back to worrying about remastering, hard limiting (turn your head and cough), disequalization, and flat masters. And the bonus round is a bunch of cool Jobim titles to spend my "streetwalking around money" on. P.S. Yer quite right of course about deep and complex critical opinions. I was having a moment of polymorphous perversity there (read: s***-throwing). It's just that there are so few of those deep and complex critical opinions that really GET ME OFF.
There's a third "rare" Sinatra/Jobim track - "Desafinado (off-key)." All three appeared on the humongous box set known as the Sinatra Suitcase. I've taken the SINATRA/JOBIM CD, added on the seven tracks he did with Jobim on the SINATRA & CO album, and then tacked on the three rare tracks. A nice homemade compilation.
I've done the very same thing, but added "A Day In The Life Of A Fool" from the "My Way" album. Recorded only a week after the last "real" Jobim session, it's the perfect complement to this compilation. Arne PS. I may be wrong, but I recall that "Fool" also was included in the Brazilian 2-LP set which Chris mentioned earlier in this thread.
Arne...You are correct! "Fool" is on The Sinatra/Jobim Sessions! It also one more RARE Sinatra piece that CAN'T be found ANYWHERE else. It is at the beginning of "One Note Somba"...It is studio chatter that is very short but "Sinatra Cool" all the same! Sinatra kind of yells out to "Close the door" and some laughter before the count in for the song to begin! That short "10 seconds" was worth the purchase alone of such a rare Sinatra album! Chris C
