Garota de Ipanema (The Girl from Ipanema)
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Garota de Ipanema (The Girl From Ipanema) – music: Antônio Carlos Jobim, words: Vinícius de Moraes; English lyrics added later by Norman Gimbel
The first commercial recording was in 1962, by Pery Ribeiro. The version performed by Astrud Gilberto, along with João Gilberto and Stan Getz, from the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, became an international hit, reaching #5 in the United States, #29 in the UK, and charting highly throughout the world. - Wikipedia
Um Encontro no Au Bon Gourmet — live performance on 2 August 1962 at the restaurant Au Bon Gourmet in Rio de Janeiro
On 2 August 1962, a musical show billed as “Um Encontro” (A Meeting), but now often referred to as “O Encontro” (The Meeting) is presented at the restaurant Au Bon Gourmet in Rio de Janeiro, featuring Antônio Carlos “Tom” Jobim, Vinícius de Moraes, João Gilberto and the vocal group Os Cariocas. Otavio Bailly is on bass, while Milton Banana plays drums. Songs premiered in this show include: Só Danço Samba, Samba do Avião, and Garota de Ipanema.
Garota de Ipanema is sung by Jobim, de Moraes, and Gilberto, including a comical introduction (See comments, below).
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João Gilberto and Stan Getz, vocals: João Gilberto (intro) and Astrud Gilberto — from the album Getz/Gilberto, recorded 18 and 19 March 1963, but released a year later. The hit single (credited to Stan Getz/Astrud Gilberto and released sometime in 1963, I believe) was edited to 2:54. An alternate cut of duration 2:44 was released in June 1964 as the B-side of the Stan Getz/João Gilberto single Blowin’ in the Wind.
Stan Getz (ts) Antônio Carlos Jobim (p) Joao Gilberto (g, vo) Tommy Williams (b) Milton Banana (d) Astrud Gilberto (vo)
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Astrud Gilberto and the Stan Getz Quartet — unidentified television appearance, 1964
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in the film Get Yourself a College Girl (1964)
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Astrud Gilberto — The video provider gives the source of the clip as “German TV, Discorama, 1965.” But it is evidently originally from a French TV profile of the singer.
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Tom Jobim with Andy Williams on an episode of the latter’s TV show originally airing 15 March 1965. The two had also performed the song during Jobim’s first guest appearance on the show, in an episode aired on 12 October 1964.
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Tom Jobim with Frank Sinatra on the 1967 Sinatra special A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim, originally shown 13 November 1967
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Stan Getz Quartet – 1983
Desafinado (Jobim, Mendonça) and Girl From Ipanema
The Stan Getz Quartet consists of Stan Getz (tenor sax) Jim McNeely (piano) Marc Johnson (double bass) Victor Lewis (drums)
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João Gilberto and Tom Jobim reunite – date unknown – c. 1990?
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(above) Vinícius de Moraes with Helô Pinheiro
from the article All About the Girl From Ipanema by Austin Burbridge at Sprezzatura.editthispage.com.
Manuscript of “Garôta de Ipanema” and Héloisa Pinheiro, in Ipanema,
The legend
In 1962, on her way home from school Héloisa Pinheiro regularly passed the Bar Veloso on Rua Montenegro in Rio de Janeiro’s fashionable Ipanema district. The composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and poet Vinícius de Moraes, who were collaborating on a musical comedy, were hanging out in the bar. Every afternoon they watched her pass by, and were inspired to write “Garota de Ipanema”. Later Jobim said, “She had long, golden hair, these bright green eyes that shone at you and a fantastic figure: let’s just say that she had everything in the right place. …” [Harold Emert, Insight Guide to Rio de Janeiro pp. 138-139]
Now the street has been renamed “Rua Vinícius de Moraes” and the bar, “A Garota de Ipanema”. But heartbreakingly beautiful girls still walk by every day. . .
The truth
From Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, by Ruy Castro
It has already been explained, but people find it hard to accept the truth: Jobim and Vinícius did not write “The Girl from Ipanema” | “Garôta de Ipanema” in the Veloso bar (today called Garota da Ipanema), which was on the street that used to be known as Rua Montenegro and is now Rua Vinícius de Moraes, at the intersection with Rua Prudente de Moraes (no relation). It was never the duo’s style to write music sitting at a table in some bar, although they had probably spent the best hours of their lives in them. Jobim composed the melody meticulously on the piano at his new home in Rua Barro da Torre, and it was originally intended for a musical comedy entitled “Dirigível” | “Blimp,” which Vinícius already had worked out in his head but had not yet committed to paper.
Vinícius, in turn, had written the lyrics in Petrópolis, near Rio, as he had done with “Chega de Saudade” six years earlier, and it took him just as much work. To begin with, it wasn’t originally called “Garota da Ipanema,” but “Menina que passa” | “The Girl Who Passes By,” and the entire first verse was different.
As for the famous girl, Jobim and Vinícius did in fact see her pass by as they sat in the Veloso bar, during the winter of 1962— not just once, but several times, and not always on her way to the beach but also on her way to school, to the dressmaker, and even to the dentist. Mostly because Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, better known as Helô, who was eighteen years of age, five feet, eight inches tall, with green eyes and long, flowing black hair, lived in Rua Montenegro and was already the object of much admiration among patrons of the Veloso, where she would frequently stop to buy cigarettes for her mother—and leave to a cacophony of wolf-whistles.
— Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, by Ruy Castro, Pp. 239-240.
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Comments from the original post (This is a duplicate on a page.):
K.J. McElrath
Apr 18, 2012 @ 10:48:51 [Edit]
The first video was particularly interesting – a shame I don’t understand Portuguese. Any chance of a translation? I’d love to know what they were laughing about.
Also – was that the verse? And did I hear just a little bit of “Desafinado”?
My ignorance notwithstanding, I think I like the song in the original Portuguese better.
Apr 18, 2012 @ 17:03:35 [Edit]
KJ, At her site Musica Brasiliensis, Daniella Thompson provides a transcript of the introduction in a review, here: http://daniellathompson.com/Texts/Reviews/Bon_Gourmet.htm. The following rough translation (Since I don’t know Portuguese either) evidently loses some of the humor:
João Gilberto (in sweet voice):
Tom…if you’ll do a song, now
What can you tell us
About Love?
Tom Jobim (in reedy voice):
Look, Little João,
I do not know
Without Vinicius to make poetry.
Vinicius de Moraes (in deep voice):
For this song,
If you perform it,
I wish “The João”
To sing.
[audience laughter]
João:
Ah, but who am I?
I’m over you.
Best if we sing together, all three
[more audience laughter and applause]
From the intro, the three proceed to the verse.
All three:
Look at that beautiful thing
more full of grace [...]
Thompson indicates that the song as premiered on this occasion was a revision of an early version titled “Menina Que Passa.” She provides the original verse, which I found impressionistic.
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