Getz/Gilberto

Creed Taylor wanted Jobim and Gilberto to meet Getz after the bossa nova concert at Carnegie Hall in November 1962, where Getz and Gilberto first met in person. The sessions ran on 18 and 19 March 1963 at A & R Studios in New York, with Phil Ramone engineering. Gilberto brought a Brazilian rhythm section, Sebastião Neto on bass and Milton Banana on drums, with Jobim on piano. Reissues wrongly list Tommy Williams as the bassist. Astrud Gilberto had never sung professionally and was the only one of the Brazilians who spoke English well, so she sang on The Girl from Ipanema and Corcovado. Her name does not appear on the cover.

Gilberto and Getz often disagreed on the best take, leaving the choice to Taylor. At one point Gilberto, who spoke no English, asked Jobim in Portuguese to tell Getz something insulting, and Jobim translated it as a remark that Gilberto had always dreamed of recording with him. Gilberto preferred a more delicate style than Getz's harder approach, which is why Getz/Gilberto #2 later gave Getz's quartet one side and Gilberto alone the other. Taylor shelved the tapes for nearly a year for fear of a commercial failure.

The album has eight songs. Besides the two Astrud features it includes Jobim's Desafinado, two older sambas, Doralice and Para Machucar Meu Coração, and three more Jobim songs. Olga Albizu's painting Alla Africa is on the cover.

Reception

Andy Beta of Pitchfork wrote that for all the acrimony in the studio the results were impeccable, and that Desafinado gets a definitive reading. He called O Grande Amor Getz at his smoldering best. In the United States the single reached number five and the album number two, held from the top by the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, and it stayed on the charts for 96 weeks. It won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1965, the first non-American album to win. JazzTimes called it essential for all serious jazz collections. Rolling Stone ranked it number 447 in 2012, and a 50th anniversary edition appeared in 2014.