Trying to imagine what jazz would be like without bossa nova is like contemplating baseball without Willie Mays. Some things just owe their debt to certain master influences. The 1964 album Getz/ Gilberto made jazz once again enjoyable, light and sensuous, teaming the mellifluous tenor of Stan Getz with the alluringly understated nasally and intimate voice of Joao Gilberto. Tenor saxist Rodrigo Sha teams up with guitarist/vocalist Mauricio Pessoa for a tribute and revisitation of the seminal album and genre, stripping down the music to its glorious and personal essence of voice, guitar and saxophone, with the rhythm team only included by intimation.
Getz was best known for his glorious and warm tone, and Sha gives occasional echoes of it when he sighs in similar fashion on the opening solo cadenza to “Chega de Saudade” and the lilting “Wave”. However, Sha is no empty impersonator, as his tone is deeper and even foggier, bringing to mind the cirrus cloud of Ben Webster as on a slow and undulating “Estate” or the mile widened vibrato a la Oliver Nelson on the bel canto “Garota de Ipanema”. For his part, Pessoa strums the nylons with intimate and simpatico fashion, patient and steady in English on the deliberate “It’s Wonderful” and “Corcovado” and swinging cool and swaying so gently in Portuguese on a delicious “Doralice”. Sounds of quiet chords on Pessoa’s guitar caress the tender “Saudade Fez Um Samba” and lilt with the bel canto Sha on “Wave”. The music glistens like the beads of sun tan lotion on a lady at the beach that causes all to say, “Aah”. A reminder of tone being what always brings the listener to a song, with sounds inspired, not impersonated.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3TKZQ6L8khquPEnYlkE9Du?si=VFRSqTmsQO-doAelrbsWKg