DESPERATELY SEEKING ASTRUD GILBERTO
A FAN'S JOURNEY TO THE EDGE OF CONTACT AND BACK.
Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes--ah
--"The Girl from Ipanema"
�
This is a story about genies getting let out of bottles, champagne corks popping by sheer cosmic force and the ephemeral nature of "it" girls down through time. It is a story of being a fan, and of being a meta-fan; of immersing yourself so far into the object of your obsession that when it comes to completion, you become the object, understanding its desires, wanting what it wants, and if you're lucky, being able to look back at the world with even just a modicum of the easy grace and charm your host cell has always portrayed.
It is a story of trying to talk with someone who hasn't talked with anyone in more than two decades. It is a story of what happens to you when it is revealed that you live but six blocks from greatness, from the source of one of the greatest musical moments of the 20th century, and after you've tried everything, all you can do is stare down the blocks in wonderment, and up at the dirty night sky, and know that that is enough. It will have to be.
Two or three moments of raw, uncomplicated happiness might be all you get in this world. I'm speaking about the stolen moments of sheer joy eked out when no one's looking--moments that have absolutely nothing to do with your family and friends, nothing to do with life's traditionally big events: weddings, births and so on. Moments when you are at one with the world, and completely removed from it, flying over the furniture, looking down at yourself and narrating to God and yourself, saying something to the effect of, Now there is a person, in all that they encompass, doing everything.
It's impossible to ascertain what provoked it, but one of my moments came on a Wednesday afternoon in November 1997. I was sitting on the couch, eating a ham sandwich and listening to Astrud Gilberto. It was an oddly warm day, and I got to come home for lunch that afternoon. The apartment I was living in at the time was only seven blocks or so from work.
And while memory won't permit the reasons for doing so, the other recollections make up for it: That day I came home at lunch, threw open the windows, let a weird, fake spring air blow in, put on Getz/Gilberto, side one, and sat on the couch, staring at the treetops, eating my brown-bag sucker lunch.
There was that first bit on track one, where Jo�o Gilberto sings his part, and then, about a minute in, her. That voice, that song, that tune. As soon as I heard it, something happened to me, something so plainly spiritual that it feels funny to say it. I transcended space and time and reality and my problems and cares, and got ejector-seat launched straight into a place no drug or God or pleasure of the flesh has ever delivered me. I was alive.
To this day, if I've ever cause to think about the happiest moments of my life, this aberrant Wednesday in November occupies a strange place in the catalog. There's my wedding, the day my sister was born, and then, the day I was sitting on the couch, eating a ham sandwich and listening to Astrud Gilberto.
Born to intellectual parents in Brazil in 1940, Astrud Gilberto was and is a chanteuse. In fact, it seems that dorks like me invented the word specifically for this woman who made her singing debut in 1963 with the international hit single "The Girl From Ipanema."
At the time she was the wife of Jo�o Gilberto and was called upon to sing during the recording session by default. She was the only Brazilian in evidence that day who could translate the lyrics.
Jo�o Gilberto himself was widely hailed as the architect of bossa nova music, the pop-jazz hybrid originated in Brazil in the late '50s amid a climate of social and political upheaval. She had also never sang publicly before.
After that recording won Record of the Year in 1964--and became a standard, the calling card by which bossa nova music became known around the world--she went on make a string of albums and singles for Verve Records, among other labels, all of which showcased her unaffected, almost siren-like simple singing.
Astrud Gilberto has been accused before of perhaps singing in a deliberately naive fashion, but among her fans the exact opposite feeling is held: Still waters run deep, and this plainspoken muse virtually wrote the book on shy-girl singers.
True to form, she has, for the last 20 years, been a world-class recluse of the Greta Garbo ilk, having not done an interview in almost as much time, suffering from one of the more classic cases of stage fright and generally shying away from publicity as a whole, while still managing to create works of art and music at a fairly prolific rate. She's sort of a genius and stuff.
You live in this town, and you hear things. Over the course of the last year or so, I kept hearing bits and pieces, some hearsay, some fact, about Astrud Gilberto being in Philadelphia. The news was always whispered in hushed, excited tones by people who generally don't whisper (or get excited) about anything. All of them came packed with enough strange whimsy and random intrigue that they could be true.
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1. An eternal fan said... on Jul 19, 2008 at 02:16PM
“Wow. I know you wrote this six years ago, but wow. Thank you. You said much, very much... I envy you that you would follow the song in your heart like this. Thank you for taking me there with your writing.”
2. e.c. said... on Jan 2, 2009 at 11:12PM
“I can definitely confirm that Astrud lived on the Main line for a time. I was in first grade with her son, and they lived around the corner from me. I was friendly with her son and spent time at the house, having no idea who she was, being only a 6 year old, but knew enough to know she was unlike any other main line mommy! ”
3. jonhansen100 (Youtube handle) said... on Aug 5, 2009 at 10:22AM
“To Author, Thanks so much for your insights to Astrud Gilberto. She must have made a deep impression on my pre-adolescent brain as this impression has lurked somewhere in the dream-state of my unconcious for or - 50 years. Since the advent of Youtube I've been able to indulge my musical curiosities with some abandon. Learning , thru your article, of your subject's "no interview policy" only makes her more interesting to those of us who need to know more. How or what do you ever say to someone like Astrud Gilberto to communicate the feelings drawn out by her art. Maybe there are no words. As life allows me the time, I will continue to study her and encourage the rest of the world to do the same. God bless you Astrud.”
4. Phillip Storey - Sydney Australia said... on Aug 22, 2009 at 12:50AM
“I had the honour of meeting and seeing her everynight for a week at the Catalina NightClub in Hollywood in 1990................Such a beautiful lady and entertainer.....................AH MEMORIES!!!!
Luvs Ya,”
5. Joe Lex, Philadelphia said... on Apr 8, 2010 at 01:47PM
“I read this when it first was published in 2002, and go back to it every year or so. It's still one of the best things I have ever read about a singer that I love. It is similar to the writing of Arthur Phillips about another Brazilian singer, Elis Regina, on his blog and in his novel The Song Is You. I currently feel this way about a Polish singer named Aga Zaryan - take a handful of Carmen McRae and Shirley Horn, add a dash of Abbey Lincoln and Elis Regina, with a pinch of Susannah McCorkle. Alas, she lives in Warsaw so I can't wistfully stand under her window and wonder...”
6. M.G. said... on Apr 25, 2010 at 09:59AM
“She lived in Wynnewood in the 1970's, down the street from my family, and my sister used to babysit her kids. My mother and aunt were huge fans of hers in the 1960's and when my sister told my mom who she was babysitting for, I think my mom nearly passed out! Can you imagine being a huge fan of someone and then finding out that they were living on your street?”
7. Bruce said... on Apr 27, 2010 at 05:36PM
“If I am not mistaken, Astrud Gilberto lives aright around Socirty Hill, I think the 200 block of Locust or Pine Street.”
8. jack divers said... on May 17, 2010 at 07:32PM
“I feel in love with Astrud in 1963 when I first heard "The Girl From Ipanema". I was aboard the USS Hancock in the South China Sea preparing to drop bombs on North Vietnam. I have never been the same after hearing her voice.”
9. Dan said... on Oct 1, 2010 at 08:30AM
“Beautifully written. It takes the feelings of many of us about Astrud and puts them into perfect words.”
10. emanuel said... on Mar 30, 2011 at 10:16PM
“I've been a a great Astrud's fan since I heard "La chica de Ipanema" in 1963......I have almost all his records and really enjoy listening her with her softly and sweet voice since then...I'm 60 and live in a place with all the Gulf of México in the front...Veracruz, a place with a very special feeling for music and dances...with people who likes to live happy all the time....people who likes good music and all kind of dancing....I'd really like to write to Astrud personally to tell her besides my admiration for her in almost all my life...some experiencies that I have with her music...her voice...with all my friends that they met her for me....my wife and my daughter and son.......It would be something fantastic for me to be able to make contact with her.....
Thanks for accept my comments.....and all for... "esa chica bella de cuerpo dorado...del sol de Ipanema....la chica más linda que he visto pasar".....”
11. Mr Nick said... on Jun 1, 2011 at 02:53PM
“I have only become obsessed recently.”
12. NDW said... on Jul 15, 2011 at 08:32AM
“I have been obsessed with Astrud Gilberto for about 7 years. I was born in 1970 and remember on occassion hearing Girl From Impanema; I was too young to appreciate the beauty of that song. As I got older, I would continue to hear Girl From Impanema and I come to love it. Around 2004, I was in a bookstore and came across the CD, Astrud Gilberto's Finest Hour and became enamored of her and the music. Her style of singing is so sexy, mysterious, sensual, and beautiful. When you listen to it, one's mind automatically goes to warm, balmy days on a sandswept beach. Ms. Gilberto's music definitely plays a major part in my listening pleasure. She has earned the title of "icon."”
13. ted decerchio said... on Aug 23, 2011 at 06:46PM
“I met Astrud in 1976 @ lankenau when she was visiting a patient-friend that I was taking care of, before her Greta Garbo days.Her friend visiting with her asked me if I knew who "The girl From ipanema" was? I had bought the Getz-Gilberto LP because of the abstract artwork cover years before so I said "you're Astrud Gilberto?" She asked me for her BP to be taken, I said in exchange for her autograph, which is "To Teddy, It was nice meeting you. Astrud Gilberto." Her BP was a little elevated.”
14. Shoshanna said... on Sep 13, 2011 at 03:08PM
“Oh...I am one of those who wished she were she.
I play on my guitar, sing The Girl From Ipanema...and dream.
Lovely.”
15. Marc Johnson said... on Sep 26, 2011 at 11:14AM
“I have to say, this article is a beautiful work of art. He so wonderfully portrays the longing we have to "know" someone whose work we have only seen or heard. I love the ham sandwich story. I had a similar happiest moment of my life when I was 19, listening to Maria Muldaur while scrubbing floors in US Navy bootcamp. I did get to meet her, at a concert a few years ago, and I simply stammered my thanks to her for all her work...”