Now

Performer: Astrud Gilberto
Artist: Deodato; Airto Moreira; Ron Carter
Distributor: RED Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Astrud Gilberto (vocals); Eumir Deodato (acoustic guitar, keyboards, background vocals); Deodato (guitar, keyboards); Al Gaffa (electric guitar); Mike Longo (keyboards); Ron Carter, Bob Cranshaw, Patrick Adams (bass); Mickey Roker, Billy Cobham (drums); Maria Helena Toledo, Nick La Sorsa (background vocals). Recorded at Blue Rock Studios, New York, New York. This is a DualDisc, which contains a CD on one side of the disc and a DVD on the other. Two years after her underrated album on CTI Records, Astrud Gilberto's follow-up is her first attempt to be taken seriously, not as a singer -- she had that covered -- but as a songwriter, at a time when simply singing standards was seen as lacking. Her four songs on this ten-song album show she has a way with a melody, though obviously influenced by countrymen Milton Nascimento and Jorge Ben, and her producer Eumir Deodato. "Gingele" and "Zigy Zigy Za" are exactly the kind of riff-based tropicalismo that Ben and company were making popular around this time. "Take It Easy My Brother Charlie" is probably her best song here (covered over 20 years later by Kahimi Karie), though it is Ben who often gets the writing credit (here it's listed as Gilberto and associate producer David Jordan). Very few concessions are made to America; only "Daybreak (Walking Out of Yesterday)" comes from the pop world, with instrumentation and sound coming from south of the equator. ~ Ted Mills The world's first exposure to Astrud Gilberto's melodious, cool yet sensuous voice was on the 1963 Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto international hit "The Girl From Ipanema," a song that was instrumental in popularizing Brazilian bossa nova on an international scale. Gilberto's influence (she alternates singing in Portuguese and English) can be discerned in the divergent styles of Stereolab, Everything but the Girl, and Sade. NOW was originally issued in 1972, after she'd left Verve Records--here, she incorporates influences of funk (a la Isaac Hayes) and the then-burgeoning style of jazz fusion into her languid, dreamy style. Performed by a stellar crew of musicians (including Ron Carter, Deodato, and Billy Cobham), NOW is classy, summery, late-night mood music that nonetheless maintains a warm, lively groove throughout.

Brazilian vocalist Astrud Gilberto was a key figure in the bossa nova movement that moved beyond Brazil to sweep the world in the early-to-mid 1960s. As a featured vocalist on the landmark 1963 GETZ/GILBERTO release by American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and Astrud's then-husband, guitarist/singer Joao Gilberto, the young lady from Bahia took the music world by storm, especially on the huge hit "Girl From Ipanema," destined to become a standard. Influenced as much by American "cool jazz" as by the Brazilian composers like Antonio Carlos Jobim whose work she interpreted, Gilberto had a sultry, low-key style that stood out amid the overblown pop productions of the era, and her blend of pop, jazz, and Brazilian sounds helped sow the first seeds of what we now know as "world music."

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