Look To The Rainbow

Performer: Astrud Gilberto
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Many of Astrud Gilberto's later albums focus on bossa nova interpretations of jazz standards and pop songs, but 1967's LOOK TO THE RAINBOW consists primarily of Portuguese-language sambas and cariocas, many from the pen of the great Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. Gilberto's version of Jobim's "Bim Bom" is the definitive interpretation of this much-recorded song. Other highlights include "Berimbau," the title track, and the melancholy "El Preciso Aprender A Ser So (Learn To Live Alone)." Gilberto is in excellent voice throughout, and producer Creed Taylor's orchestrations are kept low-key so as not to detract from that magical voice. Peculiarly, this 45-minute CD ends with the six songs from Gilberto's 1966 classic A CERTAIN SMILE, A CERTAIN SADNESS that do not appear at the end of the simultaneous CD reissue of 1967's BEACH SAMBA, including the album's two title tracks and the perfect "Summer Samba." The 2008 reissue of Astrud Gilberto's LOOK TO THE RAINBOW restores the original 1967 LP's 11-track configuration. (The previous CD version included six songs from a previous Gilberto collaboration with Brazilian organist Walter Wanderly.) With arrangements provided by Gil Evans and saxophonist Al Cohn, it's also perhaps Gilberto's most jazz-oriented session, starting off with the percussive "Berimbau," sung in the original Portuguese. Since this is just as much a Gil Evans project, we are also treated to one of his signature slow meditations on "I Will Wait For You," which perfectly supports Gilberto's typically plaintive vocal. There are some bossa nova standards here too--Jobim's "A Felicidade" and the perky "Bim Bom"--in addition to the lovely "Once Upon A Summertime," whose evanescence this wonderfully remastered edition reveals as if for the first time.

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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