Astrud Gilberto: 7 New Videos

The singer rehearsed her two 'Getz/Gilberto' songs at Stan Getz's apartment

In 1963, guitarist João Gilberto and his wife, Astrud, stayed with Stan Getz and his wife, Monica, in their New York apartment. It’s the same apartment where Getz would cut a tendon in his leg in 1965 when he slipped on the floor and his right foot went through a glass door. Stan and Monica wouldn’t buy their Shadowbrook estate in Irvington, N.Y., until 1966. [Photo above of Astrud Gilberto courtesy of Brazil’s Acervo UH]

The Gilbertos had been in New York since late 1962, when João appeared at the famed Brazilian Guitar/Bossa Nova concert held at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 21, 1962. The event marked the first time the laid-back Brazilian music was performed live for an American audience in the U.S.

Monica told me that while the Gilbertos were staying with the Getzs in early 1963, Astrud, João and Stan rehearsed The Girl From Ipanema using Norman Gimbel’s English-language lyrics (and Corcovado with Gene Lees’s English-language lyrics). This was in advance of their recording of Getz/Gilberto in March 1963.

Creed Taylor had asked Gimbel to come up with lyrics for Ipanema after Gimbel penned English words for Insensatez (How Insensitive), recorded by Maria Toledo on Getz’s Jazz Samba Encore! in February 1963.

So when Astrud and João joined Antônio Carlos Jobim (p), Sebastião Neto (b) and Milton Banana (d,pandeiro) at New York’s A&R Recording in March, she had already rehearsed it and was good to go. Astrud died in 2023 at 83.

Today, I have a treat for you: a bunch of new videos of Astrud on TV or in concert:

Here’s Take Me to Aruanda at the jazz festival Newport à Paris on August 11, 1968…

Here she is singing Baden Powell and Vinicius de Moraes’s Canto de Ossanha (Let Go) in 1970…

Here’s Marcos Valle’s So Nice (Summer Samba) at the Jazz Summit Hollabrunn in Austria on July 5, 1985…

Here’s Gilberto on the same tour, this time in Switzerland at Estival Lugano in 1985…

Here she is performing on Spanish TV’s Angel Casas Show on March 25, 1985…

Here she is for an hour in 1987 in at The Hague in the Netherlands on July 11, 1987…

And here she is in Leonberg, Germany, in 1988…

Bonus: Here’s a throwback, featuring Gilberto with Pim Jacobs (p), Wim Overgaauw (g), Ruud Jacobs (b) and Dom Um Romão (d), with Ruud Brink (ts) on Dutch TV in July 1965…