"At a 1976 concert featuring American saxophone superstar Stan Getz and Brazilian singer and guitarist João Gilberto, Getz welcomed his partner to the stage in a tone of voice that reveals just how gobsmacked he remained by his genius. "The most individual singer of our time, a true originator," he enthused. "His curious ability to sing warmly without a vibrato, his impeccable and inimitable rhythmic sense, his intimacy, all coupled to his wonderful guitar work, make him unique." If that sounds dry, Miles Davis put it so: "Gilberto could sound seductive reading aloud from the Wall Street Journal.""
"Despite being in close proximity to João Gilberto for over a decade by that point-onstage and in the studio-Getz is forever mystified by Gilberto: his voice, his attenuated pitch, his rhythmic sense, the space within the music that he birthed, bossa nova. And in a decade of increasingly louder and louder musical revolutions, Gilberto sat at the center of the most hushed one of all, now mistakenly perceived as quaint elevator music instead of the sophisticated and subtle paradigm shift that bossa nova actually was, a marriage between Afro-Brazilian rhythm and intricate Eurocentric harmonic concepts."
João Gilberto created a hushed, intimate bossa nova voice and guitar approach defined by attenuated pitch, absence of vibrato, impeccable rhythmic sense, and close phrasing. Stan Getz and others recognized Gilberto's singular musicality and understated power. Bossa nova fused Afro-Brazilian rhythmic roots with intricate Eurocentric harmonic ideas to produce a subtle but revolutionary musical paradigm. The 1964 Getz/Gilberto album introduced this sound to American and global audiences, translating innovations that had already emerged in Brazil after Gilberto's 1959 solo Chega De Saudade ignited a national movement.
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