This beauty turned 40 years this summer. And how fresh it sounds! You can love it or hate it but there’s no way you can be indifferent to its aesthetic. (That is, if you’re a great music lover.) I listen to this album every now and then, and always find something new: an unexpected shade, a nuance, a kick in the guts. You probably won’t listen to these songs on Brazilian commercial radio (always modeling itself on the radio culture of the U.S.; but then again gringos are the imperialists!), but those young DJs in São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro or Bahia are enthralled with its sound; and they find ways to make sound funky. «

Elis & Tom» was recorded when Elis Regina was Elis Regina. Which is to say, when Elis was already a mega-star of Brazilian national TV. (In fact, she was bigger than Tom. And that should say a lot.) Elis was a pop star moving and shaking things in pop culture, but she was also a smart lady. (So much so that Ronaldo Bôscoli couldn’t take it anymore. Is that right? Pois é…) I always wondered why Elis never had the inclination to make what is known as a crossover (whatever the fuck that means), why she never looked beyond Brazil. Sure, she recorded with Toots Thielemans (an album Bob Dylan seems to be fond of) and appeared several times at the Montreux Jazz Festival, but those efforts were on her own terms.

Moreover, as she explained in a long an interview (click here if you care to see the whole thing), smoking cigarette after cigarette, she didn’t have the talent (nor the stomach, I suppose) to sing in other language other than Portuguese. I was not in her because, unlike Jobim, she believed the Portuguese was music in itself. Something to learn from a great woman who is barely known in the States. |≡|