Song:Aguas de Marco (Waters Of March)
Album:Antonio Carlos Jobim's Finest Hour
Antonio Carlos Jobim's influence as a musician and composer transcends Brazilian music and has been a big influence on jazz and other forms of music. Aguas de Marco is one of his most popular songs and this is the definitive version. He was born Jan. 25, 1927 in Rio de Janiero and was influenced by the French composer Claude Debussy. But he was a big jazz fan too. He was studying to be an architect but the lure of music had him performing regularly in clubs in 1954. His big break came when he got together with poet Vinicius de Moraes and they wrote the score for the 1958 film Black Orpheus. Joao Gilberto recorded some of Jobim's songs and this got the attention of producer Creed Taylor and legendary jazz musicians Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd. This led to the 1962 hit Desifinado and Jobim came to the US to record several albums with those guys including the big hit The Girl From Ipanema featuring Astrud Gilberto. Though the Bossa Nova fad faded in the late 60s, Jobim continued to record on a regular basis mostly on Verve Records but on other labels as well. He seemed to work very well with arranger Claus Ogerman. He stopped touring in the 70s. Jobim originally recorded Aguas de Marco on his 1972 album Jobim. But this best known recording of the song was on the 1974 album Elis & Tom with the well known Brazilian vocalist Elis Regina. The album was recorded in Los Angeles with Jobim on piano and Oscar Castro-Neves on guitar. That album was out of print for years but is now available on CD. I recommend this Verve comp to beginners. The song has Portuguese and English lyrics and Sergio Mendes was the first to record it in English. It's been covered by all kinds of singers. Jobim returned to touring in 1985 and was finally getting well deserved acclaim when he died of heart failure on Dec. 8, 1994 at age 67. Here's Antonio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina performing Aguas de Marco 1974.
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