On Jobim's second A&M album, Eumir Deodato takes over the chart-making tasks, and the difference between him and Claus Ogerman is quite apparent in the remake of "The Girl From Ipanema": the charts are heavier, more dramatic, and structured. Sometimes the arrangements roll back so one can hear, say, the dancing multi-phonic flute of wildman Hermeto Pascoal on "Tema Jazz," and the rhythms often veer away from the familiar ticking of the bossa nova. Jobim is his usual understated self, adding very subtle electric piano to his arsenal of acoustic piano and guitar, but the material sometimes falls short of Jobim's tip-top level (dead giveaway: "Tide" is a clever rewrite on the chord changes of "Wave"). Still, it's beautifully made and very musical at all times.

Perhaps the greatest Quincy Jones album of the 60s - a hard-swinging batch of big band bossa tunes - and one of the greatest American takes on the bossa sound ever! Quincy really brings a lot of soul to the set - syncopating the bottom end of the tunes to really bring out the rhythms, and working with a jazzy flourish of horns that creates all these quick and clever little turns in the tunes! The sound's been heard most famously on the incredible track "Soul Bossa Nova" - an original by Quincy for the set, which has gone onto much greater fame through its use in the film Austin Powers, and a bazillion TV commercials!

Three weeks after completing his meeting with Luiz Bonfá and only two days after the epochal Getz/Gilberto sessions, Stan Getz was back in the studio recording more bossa nova. Producer Creed Taylor was obviously striking while the iron was hot, getting in as many Brazilian sessions as he could, yet the quality of the music-making remained consistently marvelous. Continuing his practice of running through one star guitarist after another, this time Getz has Laurindo Almeida as the designated rhythm man, featured composer, and solo foil. The rhythm section is an authentically swinging mixture of American sidemen (including Steve Kuhn on piano and George Duvivier on bass) and Brazilian percussionists. Almeida didn't like to improvise, so his solos stay close to the tunes, inflected with a perfectly matched feeling for the groove along with classical poise…

Justifiably overshadowed by the peerless Getz/Gilberto album (which featured "Girl from Ipanema") from a year before, Getz/Gilberto #2 still holds its own with an appealing selection of fine jazz and bossa nova cuts. Unlike the first album's seamless collaboration by Getz, João Gilberto, Astrud Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, here Getz and João Gilberto turn in separate sets recorded live at Carnegie Hall in October of 1964. Backed by a stellar quartet comprised of vibraphonist Gary Burton, bassist Gene Cherico, and drummer Joe Hunt, Getz turns in a sparkling performances on the seldom covered ballad "Tonight I'll Shall Sleep with a Smile on My Face," while stretching out nicely on his original blues swinger "Stan's Blues…

Way back in 1991, Brazilian-born pianist Eliane Elias opened Illusions, her debut solo album, with a tune called "Choro." It offered a swinging distillation of the musical form that has been at the heart of her life-long study of samba. Since then, she's revisited her musical heritage over and over again, wedding modern jazz to post-1960 Brazilian jazz and MPB. In the process, she's developed an instantly identifiable sound as a pianist. Dance of Time follows 2015's fine Made in Brasil, a set that relied most heavily on bossa nova.

Astrud Gilberto became an accidental success when her fragile command of English made her the de facto choice to sing "The Girl from Ipanema" at a session led by Stan Getz and her husband, João Gilberto. Of course, despite its overwhelming success, it wasn't clear that she could sustain a career when she recorded her first solo LP, The Astrud Gilberto Album. She had sounded more like an amateurish novelty act than a recording professional, her voice was sweet but fragile, and the Getz/Gilberto album had featured two strong voices, with Gilberto herself an afterthought (albeit a commercially effective afterthought). But The Astrud Gilberto Album was at least as good as Getz/Gilberto (despite what jazz fans say), for several reasons…

2006 release by studio-based outfit Lazy featuring soft and sweet Bossa Nova/Electronic Сhillout versions of some of Pink Floyd's most memorable tunes including 'Wish You Were Here', 'Money', 'Another Brick in the Wall', 'Comfortably Numb' and more. If the girl from Ipanema had been raised in Swingin'London in the late '60s and early '70s, then she probably would have sounded like this!

Astrud Gilberto has never been properly anthologized by Verve Records; although they've released a number of compilations over the years, none of them have been definitive, and most of them have been rather skimpy. 1987's The Silver Collection, originally released only in Europe but later imported to North America, is an idiosyncratic selection. It omits "The Girl From Ipanema," her biggest hit, includes all 11 tracks from her 1965 release The Astrud Gilberto Album, and adds on a selection of singles and album tracks recorded from 1965 to 1970 with no particular logic. All that said, however, it's still one of the best compilations available of this idiosyncratic but brilliant singer's '60s material. Jazz purists turn up their noses at Gilberto, correctly pointing out her near total lack of technical ability. However, the Brazilian songbird's appealingly plain voice, with its deliberately wobbly pitch (the "desafinado" style celebrated in Antonio Carlos Jobim's song of that title), total lack of vibrato, and deadpan phrasing, is a delight for those attuned to its charms.