Antonio Carlos Jobim: The Composer Plays

by

Antônio Carlos Jobim

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Everybody seems to be in agreement, so we can skip the part about how great this album is. Let's take a look at how this recording stands in relation to the development of Jobim's music and the whole bossa craze.

Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd initiated that craze in the U.S. with the release of "Desafinado" in the summer of 1962. To capitalize on this, Jobim arrived in the U.S. for the first time toward the end of the year. He recorded "The Composer Plays" in May, 1963 in NYC. Before all this, though, the 36 year-old Jobim had co-protagonized the full cycle of Brazil's bossa nova revolution and subsequent counter-revolutions in his native Rio. The oldest songs on this record were by then six years old. Nearly all were already full-fledged Brazilian standards. Even "Girl from Ipanema," which only debuted in the spring of 1962 with the mark of an instant classic, had already been played to death. This recording then, made 6,000 miles from the maelstrom of Rio and its by then inbred bossa scene, was a chance for Jobim to reclaim his music.

What claim then, did Jobim make? Bossa is often described as a marriage of the samba rhythm to the cool jazz aesthetic. No bossa recording demonstrates that better than this one. Melodically, Jobim coulnd't have played it any "cooler." Melody is front and center, played on the piano -- one finger most of the time -- or sometimes shared out to the alto flute or trombone. Though Jobim was immersed in jazz in the U.S., there is hardly a lick of improvisation. The solos are carefully constructed and played simply as alternate melody lines. The marvelous Claus Ogerman string arrangements -- amazingly spare and lush at the same time and added like dashes of color -- are used to highlight Jobim's harmonics.

Rythmically, Jobim pays direct homage to samba in its purest form. For me the hero of this record is the drummer, uncredited as far as I can tell. Right out front in the mix, but restrained at the same time, he perfectly reproduces the rhythms of the samba tambourine, the focus of samba rhythm. (A digression: the drummer here plays the signature bossa syncopated beat on the snare rim and straight eighths on the high hat. A skilled "sambista" does the eighths with the rattles of the tambourine and the syncopated beat with his hand on the head. If you don't think that's hard, try it sometime.) The bass player, also uncredited, plays a simple root on the downbeats, mimicking the part of the sole bass drum in a samba "conjunto." The acoustic bossa guitar, Joao Gilberto's invention, is also there, lighty strumming counterpoint to the drums. This sublime rhythm arrangement is a constant on the entire record.

So, we've got hot rhythms and cool stylings: this alone would have made the record great. What puts it in the all-time-great category are the songs themselves. Jobim is without doubt one of the great song writers of all time. It's a shame that Jobim sometimes gets lumped in with the Bachrach crowd. How many Bachrach tunes are jazz standards? (This may be due to the fact that in general, the English versions of Jobim's songs are poor. Desafinado in English is execrable, in Portugese it's probably the best lyric ever put to a Jobim tune.)

Shortly after this record, Jobim participated in the first of the Getz/Gilberto collaborations, and he would relive the arc of fame and fortune internationally that he had already gone through in Brazil. Thus, "The Composer Plays" catches Jobim during a calm interlude in his otherwise meteoric career, at a time when he had the time and perspective to put down on record his most considered personal statement of what his music was all about -- bossa that is simple yet sophisticated and elegant, never overshadowing his gorgeous melodies.

Love Jobim, like violins but the two together? Well let's just say it's not a marriage made in heaven. Perhaps the album should have been subtitled Jobim goes `70's mainstream. Claus Ogerman, arranger and conductor, brings a load of Montovanni to Jobim that he definitely could do without. Which is to say it destroys the Samba experience for me. The Verve guys are breathing really heavily over this album. It is actually the worst Jobim album I've heard. Bummer!! But if you dig violins, violas and cellos with your Samba - then this is the disc for you.