Astrud Gilberto died: this is how Garota de Ipanema sang and how was the history of the song

Astrud Gilberto died Tuesday at the age of 83. In addition to being the wife of one of the fathers of bossa nova, Joao Gilberto, she became known worldwide for recording Garota de Ipanema, along with her husband and saxophonist Stan Getz, on the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto.

Astrud Gilberto was born in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil) on March 29, 1940, of a Brazilian mother and a German father, so they decided to call her after a goddess of Germany.

His mother played various instruments and his father was a language teacher. Astrud grew up surrounded by music and learned, in addition to Portuguese and Spanish, French, Italian, English or Japanese.

At the age of 19 she married the guitarist Joao Gilberto, from whom she would take the surname and whom she accompanied in various performances, including a concert at the Faculty of Architecture of Rio de Janeiro.

Astrud Gilberto toured all over the world thanks to "Garota de Ipanema". Photo EFE

Instant success

In 1963, during a recording of her husband in New York, she met saxophonist Stan Getz, who was looking for a voice for the English song Garota de Ipanema. The success was absolute and Astrud Gilberto -who was not yet a professional singer-, his natural charm and his whispering voice with that song, included in the album Getz / Gilberto, would make the Brazilian rhythm triumph in the United States.

There are those who say that when she separated from Gilberto and faced a tour with Stan Getz there would also have been a love story between them.

"The Girl from Ipanema" Astrud Gilberto, João Gilberto and Stan Getz

The song had originally been recorded in 1962, with lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes and music by Antonio Carlos Jobim, better known as Tom Jobim.

Thus, the young woman became part of the legend of "bossa nova" with a song that reunited Stan Getz with Jobim and another of the fathers of the genre, Joao Gilberto.

Astrud Gilberto sang for years with saxophonist Stan Getz.

The history of the song

Legend has it that Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim created Garota de Ipanema, the most performed Brazilian song in the world, on an afternoon, when they were drinking in a bar and saw a beautiful young woman on her way to the beach. And, by the way, the scene added poetry to the bossa nova superhit.

Although it may not have been so true that Vinicius and Tom wrote the song while spying on the "sweet rocking" of the hips of a young Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto when she went to the beach or ran errands for her parents.

Helô Pinheiro, the young woman who in 1962 inspired Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes to compose the "Garota de Ipanema". EFE/Sebastião Moreira

With the opening of the Vinicius de Moraes Digital Collection (a company created by the artist's heirs), that idyllic image that presented both composers in the Bar do Veloso, on the old Montenegro de Ipanema Street (today Vinicius de Moraes), in Rio de Janeiro, will remain in the memory of a past that, in truth, did not have so much to do with reality.

The Brazilian poet and composer Vinicius de Moraes wrote the lyrics of "Garota de Ipanema". Photo EFE

And the more than 11,000 archives documenting the creative history of the Brazilian poet, composer, diplomat and playwright seem to show that not everything was as we thought until now.

It is that the "declassified" material reveals that De Moraes, considered one of the fathers of "bossa nova", was not one of those who write a hit on a napkin, and that, on the contrary, he used to review, remake, edit and correct all his literary and musical production several times before offering the final version.

"In the archives on his intellectual production we can see that Vinicius was a man who was a worker of the word. And that's why a poem or a song could take years before being finished," Julia Moraes, granddaughter of the composer, responsible for the initiative and director of VM Cultural, the company created by the artist's heirs, told EFE.

Tom Jobim, the author of the music for "Garota de Ipanema".

"Many believe that he composed Garota de Ipanema sitting in a bar, drinking his beer on a sunny afternoon and conversing with Tom Jobim. But in reality it was not like that. The song has several versions in which it is possible to see an intense search for words and rhymes. He changes several words, questions himself and perfects his lyrical voice through constant and prolonged work," he said.

WD

See also

"December 2001": Who's Who in the Star+ Series on the Crisis That Ended the De la Rua Government

Why Matilda, the musical in the Great Rex is different from Danny DeVito's movie