Between the release of João Gilberto in 1961 and Boss of Bossa Nova in 1963—and three weeks before the famed bossa nova concert at New York's Carnegie Hall on November 21, 1962—João Gilberto performed at Club 676 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But he wasn't alone. Traveling with him were Os Cariocas, a phrase that translates as the “guys from Rio de Janeiro." The Cariocas were a four-man pop vocal-harmony group that sang while accompanying themselves on instruments.
Recently released on Ubatuqui Records and offered at Jordi Pujol's Fresh Sound site is João Gilberto with Os Cariocas in Buenos Aires. The album's previously unreleased 22 tracks feature João Gilberto (g, vcl) plus the Cariocas—Severino Filho (vcl, p, arr), Badeco (vcl, g), Quartera (vcl, perc) and Luiz Roberto (vcl, b). The songs performed are mostly Brazilian bossa nova standards, plus three songs Gilberto had never sung previously.
The sound isn't studio quality, but it is a historic recording that was restored and allows us to hear Gilberto with a vocal-harmony group just before he became a household name. He performed with the Cariocas throughout 1962 in an attempt to widen his commercial appeal at clubs in South America. The quintet's musical relationship would end in November when Gilberto left Brazil for the U.S. and stardom as a solo artist. We also hear a talkative Gilberto talking to the Argentine audience, which is unusual, since Gilberto has long been viewed as highly introverted.
As Carlos Marcelo Lesgart's fascinating liner notes point out, the vocal arrangement of Só Danço Samba (Jazz 'n' Samba)—a song that appears three times during the group's different sets on the album—is different than the hit version released a month earlier in 1962 on the soundtrack of Copacabana Palace, an Italian comedy film shot in Rio.
This new album represents their last known performance together and gives us an an opportunity to hear an audience's joyful reaction to the bossa nova a little more than a year before the global release of Getz/Gilberto in March 1964 and Brazil's military coup that April. At first a youth-culture movement in Brazil, the bossa nova would shift to adult contemporary after February 1964 with the arrival of Beatlemania. In this regard, it's an amazing audio snapshot captured on the cusp of several seismic shifts in popular music.
João Gilberto died in 2019.
Bonus: Here's a synthesis clip from the film Copacabana Palace, which features some of the only footage of Gilberto with Os Cariocas at 8:21...
Recently released on Ubatuqui Records and offered at Jordi Pujol's Fresh Sound site is João Gilberto with Os Cariocas in Buenos Aires. The album's previously unreleased 22 tracks feature João Gilberto (g, vcl) plus the Cariocas—Severino Filho (vcl, p, arr), Badeco (vcl, g), Quartera (vcl, perc) and Luiz Roberto (vcl, b). The songs performed are mostly Brazilian bossa nova standards, plus three songs Gilberto had never sung previously.
The sound isn't studio quality, but it is a historic recording that was restored and allows us to hear Gilberto with a vocal-harmony group just before he became a household name. He performed with the Cariocas throughout 1962 in an attempt to widen his commercial appeal at clubs in South America. The quintet's musical relationship would end in November when Gilberto left Brazil for the U.S. and stardom as a solo artist. We also hear a talkative Gilberto talking to the Argentine audience, which is unusual, since Gilberto has long been viewed as highly introverted.
As Carlos Marcelo Lesgart's fascinating liner notes point out, the vocal arrangement of Só Danço Samba (Jazz 'n' Samba)—a song that appears three times during the group's different sets on the album—is different than the hit version released a month earlier in 1962 on the soundtrack of Copacabana Palace, an Italian comedy film shot in Rio.
This new album represents their last known performance together and gives us an an opportunity to hear an audience's joyful reaction to the bossa nova a little more than a year before the global release of Getz/Gilberto in March 1964 and Brazil's military coup that April. At first a youth-culture movement in Brazil, the bossa nova would shift to adult contemporary after February 1964 with the arrival of Beatlemania. In this regard, it's an amazing audio snapshot captured on the cusp of several seismic shifts in popular music.
João Gilberto died in 2019.
Bonus: Here's a synthesis clip from the film Copacabana Palace, which features some of the only footage of Gilberto with Os Cariocas at 8:21...
This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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