Bossa Nova Music

Emilio Santiago's been voted Brazil's best male vocalist several years in a row, and this is another perfect example of his talents.
These tracks represent perhaps the best Bossa Nova standards of all time (except for "Samba de Verao" that was not included in this CD), singing songs by the best songwriters of the genre like: Jobim / De Moraes / Lyra / Valle / Motta / Menescal / Boscoli / Bonfa / Maria / Donato / Barroso / Powell / Veloso (Post Bossa Nova) / Pinto Ferreira.
The absolute highlights here are:
- Voce E Eu
- Doce Viver (superb...)
- Rio
- Bateu Pra Tras
- Faixa de Cetim
- Garota de Ipanema.

So, if you're a Bossa Nova fan and don't have this wonderful effort in your collection, you're missing out everything...

1. 5:03 Wave
2. 3:11 Jazz Samba
3. 3:54 Girl From Ipanema
4. 3:13 Blue Bossa
5. 5:07 Meditation
6. 5:57 Black Orpheus
7. 2:04 Autumn Leaves
8. 4:19 Corcovado
9. 2:54 Summer Samba
10. 3:33 High Expectation

Well, can't say I agree much with the previous reviewer. I think this is a pretty fair compilation. This is really music of Brazil with mostly Brazilian musicians and singers. Perhaps the reviewer wanted more "traditional" Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius De Moraes or perhaps American renditions of Bossa Nova/MPB?

This is a double disk set from the Gold series, which specializes in featured artists and styles. That said, the sound quality in this double disk set is NOT like that of the Antonio Carlos Jobim tribute or the acoustic/Spanish guitar releases. It's better, although it still won't wow you.

The styles are everything from Bossa Nova, Samba, Tropicalismo and MPB - what is neat about this CD is that you can get a vivid sense of the many different styles of music in Brasil and how the music in Brasil sort of is like a spider web, from one sound leading into the other and etc. Featured artists are Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins, Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim with Miucha, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Milton Nascimento, Baden Powell, Maria Bethania, Gal Costa, Joyce, Edu Lobo and many many more.

I enjoyed this CD. It's a bit off of the beaten path and offers some of the music that probably did not reach the American shores from Brasil in the seventies and eighties when the music was still evolving. It will not blow you out of the water, but I enjoyed it. For the price, the double disk is nice.

I am a Bossa Nova collector and I was very disappointed with this double CD simply because it has VERY LITTLE bossa nova music on it. It's mostly samba, tropicalism, and MPB. It might be a good "eclectic" collection of Brazilian music, but that's about it. I'm giving my copy to my nephew.

Bossa Nova Gold is an excellent compilation double CD of various wizards of Bossa Nova. It contains songs usually left off of other compilations and includes many of my favorite artists and their songs, like Gal Costa's smooth Bem Bom and Baden Powell and Caetano. But you will be disappointed if you uexpect to hear Elis Regina or Leila Pinheiro.

Well, can't say I agree much with the previous reviewer. I think this is a pretty fair compilation. This is really music of Brazil with mostly Brazilian musicians and singers. Perhaps the reviewer wanted more "traditional" Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius De Moraes or perhaps American renditions of Bossa Nova/MPB?

This is a double disk set from the Gold series, which specializes in featured artists and styles. That said, the sound quality in this double disk set is NOT like that of the Antonio Carlos Jobim tribute or the acoustic/Spanish guitar releases. It's better, although it still won't wow you.

The styles are everything from Bossa Nova, Samba, Tropicalismo and MPB - what is neat about this CD is that you can get a vivid sense of the many different styles of music in Brasil and how the music in Brasil sort of is like a spider web, from one sound leading into the other and etc. Featured artists are Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins, Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim with Miucha, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Milton Nascimento, Baden Powell, Maria Bethania, Gal Costa, Joyce, Edu Lobo and many many more.

I enjoyed this CD. It's a bit off of the beaten path and offers some of the music that probably did not reach the American shores from Brasil in the seventies and eighties when the music was still evolving. It will not blow you out of the water, but I enjoyed it. For the price, the double disk is nice.

I am a Bossa Nova collector and I was very disappointed with this double CD simply because it has VERY LITTLE bossa nova music on it. It's mostly samba, tropicalism, and MPB. It might be a good "eclectic" collection of Brazilian music, but that's about it. I'm giving my copy to my nephew.

Bossa Nova Gold is an excellent compilation double CD of various wizards of Bossa Nova. It contains songs usually left off of other compilations and includes many of my favorite artists and their songs, like Gal Costa's smooth Bem Bom and Baden Powell and Caetano. But you will be disappointed if you uexpect to hear Elis Regina or Leila Pinheiro.

NOVI were the first to make a break-through in the tradition of Polish vocal groups, a tradition which goes back to the very popular singers in the thirties - The Dan Choir. It was then a great stride forward as Polish jazz vocalists had been lagging behind in comparison with our instrumental music. Elsewhere, in the world there was then consistent progress in this field. New groups were being formed - the phenomenal American Lambert-Hendricks-Ross Trio, the French Les Double Six group and many others. In modern jazz, human voices began playing the parts of instruments, giving rise to a new school of "instrumental" singing. This kind of singing calls for special qualifications. The performer must be simultaneously a vocalist, instrumentalist and jazzman capable of playing improvised parts. Now the NOVI band can do all these things. The members of the band are educated musicians who have graduated from the Warsaw Advanced Music School: Ewa Wanat - violinist; Janusz Mych - flutist; Waldemar Parzynski - sound supervisor and percussionist; their leader, Bernard Kawka - violinist. They are all real jazzmen.

Their name NOVI (the new ones) has a special meaning for them. It not only suggests something new, but is made up of the initials of the English words New Original Vocal Instruments. And this is so indeed. The NOVI use their voices like instruments. They can give the monosyllables of their vocalises any sound and articulation they wish. NOVI's biography is short and brilliant. In late 1964 a young graduate of the Warsaw Conservatory, Bernard Kawka, fascinated by the music of Bill Evans, whom he had met in Scandinavia, decided to devote himself to jazz. In the Conservatory he found others who shared his enthusiasm for this music. This led to the formation of the band. They considered that the best way of expressing their jazz ideas would be to use their own voices. At first they appeared only on the radio, becoming very popular with listeners. Then they took part in the annual international festival Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw in 1965 and since that time have been appearing at similar events both at home and abroad. They sang in Switzerland where they won first prize at a jazz festival, they appeared at Bled in Yugoslavia and in many other countries. They have co-operated with leading Polish jazz musicians: Andrzej Trzaskowski, Krzysztof Komeda, Adam Matyszkowicz and others.

The NOVI called their first record "Bossa-Nova". This should not be taken literally. It reflects only the general climate of the record on which the NOVI display the whole range of their possibilities. Only in some pieces is the theme introduced in the form of a bossa-nova and then followed by standard swing improvisations, big-band riffs or swing tutti.

The group is accompanied by instrumental sets ranging from double-bass with percussion, the full section, flute, vibraphone, to a group of string instruments. The band is made up of jazz musicians: Andrzej Matyszkowicz, piano; Janusz Kozlowski, double-bass, Janusz Sidorenko, guitar and Jerzy Bartz, percussion.

text courtesy of Jan Borkowski (original line notes from the album's back cover)