It's a shame that this beautiful genre has disappeared from (at least) from the American memory.
It did have a large cult audience starting with the Jobim/Bonfa soundtrack for the surprise hit
movie Black Orpheus in '59 and ran through the equally surprising success of Sergio
Mendes and his variously configurated groups. Albums by such composers as Milton
Nascimento, Caetano Veloso and many others were available in those days as special order
(especially expensive) expensive imports but worth the cost.A few latecomers like Sivuca and Bola
Sete got albums released here at the dawn of the '70's but by then rock had steamrolled over
this music as it had done to standard American pop...jazz and classical and...
The last hit of the genre I recall was this from '70 or '71 written by Eumuir Deodata (soon
to be a shlock/fusion sell-out) for Astrud Gilberto with a surprisingly good Stanley Turrentine
on tenor. I don't think it was a nation-wide success but it was in heavy rotation on AM radio in
NYC at the time - surprising because of it's length:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WbF3p2Evfg
(Blair N. Cummings)
(note to Mark)
Blair's "new computer isn't being recognised or his e-mail by the site... that's why he's asked me to post his message.
Could you please help ?
Thanks.
'blue'