To celebrate the arrival of March, this week I’m going with a total classic: ‘Águas de Março’, sung by Elis Regina and Tom Jobim. Indeed, it has been chosen as the best Brazilian song of all times by an authoritative pool of Brazilian journalists and musicians in 2001; it truly is a beautiful song.
Tom Jobim needs no introductions for anyone with an interest in Brazilian music. He was a classically trained pianist, having been influenced by Debussy and Ravel, but always with a keen interest in jazz as well. Together with João Gilberto and a few others, he is one of the founders of the Bossa Nova movement in the late 1950s, and the composer of what is probably the most famous Brazilian song ever, ‘Garota de Ipanema’. Bossa Nova is now mostly known as a somewhat soporific genre, widely played in elevators and waiting rooms, but originally it was characterized by complex rhythms and sophisticated melodies (granted, not of the very ‘loud and vibrant’ kind). In effect, Bossa Nova is often and correctly described as the (happy) marriage between samba and jazz. But Tom Jobim’s oeuvre goes well beyond the classical Bossa Nova period (end of 1950s to end of 1960s); he remained productive all the way until his death in 1994 while recording his last record, ‘Antonio Brasileiro’ (which is great btw, including a super cute duo with his then 6 year-old daughter).
Tom Jobim recorded quite a few albums in collaboration with other singers/musicians, such as Stan Getz and Frank Sinatra. The song of today is taken from the album recorded in 1974 with Elis Regina, who was perhaps the most prominent female Brazilian singer in the 1970s. She was hugely popular in this period, singing compositions by the best Brazilian composers (as far as I know, she did not compose herself); she had a great vocal technique and invariably came up with highly creative interpretations for the songs in her repertoire. Elis died prematurely in 1982, from an accidental interaction of drugs and alcohol. (I still remember when she died, the whole country was in shock.) She had three children, all of whom grew up to be successful musicians themselves.
The song, ‘Águas de Março’, was written (music and lyrics) by Tom Jobim: the lyrics are impossibly hard to memorize (after all these years, I still can’t sing the song in its entirety!), as they do not tell a ‘story’ or anything resembling one. Rather, it is an impressionistic painting with broad strokes of the rainiest month in Rio de Janeiro (March), which also represents the end of summer. Indeed, what matters is not so much the meaning of the words but rather the sounds they create when put together. When I listen to this song, the meaning of the lyrics is the last thing in my mind; it is so contagious that the first time I played it for my children (who were then very small), they immediately started dancing and bouncing around.
This year, the rainy season has arrived much before March, causing floods and landslides where many died and many more lost all they had, mainly in the state of Rio de Janeiro. So the rainy season has its ugly sides too, something you might never guess by just listening to the song. But March has just arrived, so here’s a song for March (which to me currently means the end of winter, can’t wait!).
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