Jazz Samba

If ever any music could evoke the sharply contrasting environments of a sun soaked sandy beach in the Caribbean or a Sunday morning breakfast overlooking Central Park in New York then "Jazz Samba" will take the listener there and everywhere in between.

This album has a particularly personal resonance for me reaching back as far as 1964. I was only ten then so it won't take a mathematical genius to work out how old I was when I wrote this. We had moved to England in 1963 and one of our family friends, Joan Groff, from our old city of Edmonton came to stay with us on a long term basis. It was Joan who bought the album and left it with us when she returned to Canada in 1965 or 1966. It has been with me since I closed up my parents' home close to ten years ago.

While I was still at home I would play this album frequently and thought that I was really "cool". Not quite the way to be "cool" when the likes of the Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Beatles were hitting the charts regularly. Classmates would bring in their albums and show them off to their mates who would look at the cover, pull the record out and say things like "Great record", "Really like the cover" and "My favourite track is...". Somehow I knew I wouldn't feel comfortable doing the same with this record.

I still have the original album but as we haven't had a record player for years I haven't listened to it.

Instead I have a CD version which I bought at a street market in nearby Lymington. As soon as Heather and I got in the car to drive home we played it on the car's sound system.

When it started and the seconds were being counted Heather said she couldn't hear anything and turned the sound up. Yes, there was music from the first second on the track but it was so imperceptibly quiet it would only have been heard by listeners familiar with the track "Desifinado". This was written by a collaboration of Antonio Carlos Jobim who composed the music and Newton Mendonca who wrote the lyrics. Incidentally "Desifinado" when translated from its original Portuguese into English becomes "wrong key/note".

The title may mean a wrong note but trust me, this track is a perfect harmonisation of the Latin American Samba style of music and a smidgeon of West Coast Jazz as is all of the other tracks. It sets the style and standard for the other six tracks whose every note and phrases carry a smooth unique cadence as smooth as fresh cream being poured into a rich Arabica freshly brewed coffee.

The other tracks are Samba Dees Days, O Pato, Samba Triste, Samba De Uma Nota So, W Luxo So and Baia.

The line up is Stan Getz - tenor sax, Charlie Byrd - guitar, Keter Betts - bass, Gene Byrd - bass and guitar, Buddy Deppenschmdt - drums and Bill Reichenback - drums.

Cover painting by Olga Albizu

There is one huge disappointment with this whole album. That is with a total play time of only 35 minutes for all 7 tracks it is just not long enough and leaves the avid listener wanting more and more of this oh so cool music. Of course that doesn't mean it is not worth buying to enjoy while watching the sun go down over the ocean, the sun coming up over a city or the miles gliding by while driving.