On the footsteps of "The Girl from Ipanema" Quiz

Answer: samba and jazz

Bossa nova is a genre derived from Brazilian samba bearing influences from cool jazz. The altered chords specific to jazz music give it a more complex harmony, yet it still keeps the drum beats characteristic of samba. Typical instruments used for performing the bossa nova include the acoustic guitar, the piano, the electronic organ, acoustic basses and drums.

Answer: Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim

The bossa nova style was first introduced by Brazilian guitarist and singer Joao Gilberto (born 1931), whose guitar accompanying of Elizete Cardoso's "Chega de Saudade" turned the song into an instant hit. The song was composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994) (lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes), also a Brazilian composer, arranger, singer, pianist and guitarist.

The two then paired to produce in 1959 "Chega de Saudade" - the album - the first ever bossa nova album. From that point on, the bossa nova style went to be embraced by many artists, not only Brazilians but also famous North American jazz musicians.

Answer: Stan Getz

While Gilberto and Jobim have the merit of creating the genre, Stan Getz (1927-1991) - perhaps the greatest tenor saxophonist of all time - should also be credited as one of its main promoters outside South America. His interest in bossa nova was stirred while working with fellow jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd on the "Jazz Samba" album, featuring themes of the newly appeared Brazilian style. He then met with Gilberto and Jobim and together they went to record the Getz/Gilberto album, released in 1963, which was to become the best selling jazz album of all times, a success mostly attributed to its main single - the famous "The Girl from Ipanema".

Boosted by this truly remarkable album, bossa nova seduced the world, as people of all ages from Latin America to North Europe, Europe and as far as Japan became great admirers of the style.

Answer: Anton Carlos Jobim

As with most of the songs on the Getz/Gilberto album, "The Girl from Ipanema" was composed by Antonio Jobim on lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. The song was performed by Astrud Gilberto, Joao's wife, and as the song became an international hit, it also established her as a jazz star. Although this was the most successful recording of the song, it was not the first, an earlier commercial version being recorded in 1962, by Pery Ribeiro.

Contrary to the wide spread legend that the two composers came up with the song on site while hanging out in a bar-café, Jobim did in fact wrote the melody in his home in Rua Barao da Torre, in Ipanema, while de Moraes wrote the lyrics in Petropolis, near Rio. And it did not take just a spark of inspiration, but rather a channeled creator effort from both artists, as the original destination for the song was supposed to be a musical comedy that they were both working to at the time.

Answer: Rio de Janeiro

The bossa nova sounds originated on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. The term bossa itself was used by the artistic beach-culture of late 1950's Rio de Janeiro to refer to a new artistic trend or style. Due to the depiction of a generally bohemian lifestyle in its lyrics, praising love, the beaches and beautiful women, bossa nova has been described as the music of the middle and upper classes. From this point of view, it contrasted with samba, which spoke of the hardships and struggles of the working class.

Answer: Vinicius de Moraes

Vinicius de Moraes (1913 - 1980), nicknamed "o poetihna" (the little poet), wrote the lyrics for countless Brazilian hit songs. Besides this he was a poet, playwright, diplomat and a composer on his own. One of his accomplishments is linked to the renowned film "Black Orpheus" (won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, the Oscar for Best Foreign Film and the Bafta Award) which was based on one of his plays and furthermore featured a wonderful bossa nova soundtrack by Antonio Jobim. Jobim was in fact one of his long time collaborators, as the duo created many all-time classic songs for Joao Gilberto's first, second and third bossa nova albums. And of course, he wrote the original, Portuguese version of "The Girl from Ipanema" - "Garota de Ipanema". This melancholic song speaks about the excitement and at the same time sadness of the poet as a beautiful girl passes by him each day and yet she seems not to be aware of his deep love for her.

The English lyrics for the song were written by Norman Gimbel.

Answer: hanging out in a bar

"The Girl of Ipanema"'s charm does not come entirely from the music itself. The song is also shrouded by the myth according to which Antonio Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes wrote the song while hanging out in the Velosso bar, situated on the Rua Montenegro in the fashionable Ipanema district and watching a very beautiful girl pass by each afternoon.

The truth is however less "romantic", as writing songs in bars was clearly not the duo's style of composing / writing as they admitted years later. Still, the legend caught on, and today, the Veloso is called "Garota da Ipanema" while the Rua Montenegro is called Rua Vinícius de Moraes.

Answer: Frank Sinatra

Since its release in the early 60s, the song has been performed by over 50 artists including Frank Sinatra, Sergio Mendes, The Supremes ("Boy from Ipanema"), Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald ("The Boy From Ipanema"), Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Diana Krall, Cher, and Michael Bolton.

Answer: It reached number one in the US charts.

"The Girl from Ipanema" won the prestigious Grammy Award for "Record of the Year" in 1965. It is the second most-recorded song of all time, surpassed only by Paul McCartney's "Yesterday". In 2004, it was added to the US National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. The song reached number 5 in the U.S. chart and number 29 in the U.K chart.

Answer: Yes

Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto was the real-life "Girl from Ipanema". She was eighteen at the time that Jobim and de Moraes were frequenting the Veloso bar and she was a native of the Ipanema neighborhood, indeed drawing all the attention as she passed by Rua Montenegro. Today she's known as Helo Pinheiro after having married.

The little tour about bossa nova and its most famous song will end here, and what better way to end it but with the words of the song itself...

"Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes - ah

When she walks, she's like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle
That when she passes, each one she passes goes - ooh

(ooh) but I watch her so sadly
How can I tell her I love her
Yes I would give my heart gladly
But each day, when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead, not at me

Tall, (and) tan, (and) young, (and) lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, I smile - but she doesn't see (doesn't see)
(she just doesn't see, she never sees me,...)"