Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars) - Antônio Carlos Jobim (arr. Heitmeyer)

Brazilian Jazz for the Classical Guitar - Steven Saulls, Classical Guitarist

About the music and the composer…

"Corcovado" (known in English as "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars") is a bossa nova song and jazz standard written by Antônio Carlos Jobim in 1960. English lyrics were later written by Gene Lees. The Portuguese title refers to the Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro.

Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (January 25, 1927 – December 8, 1994), also known as Tom Jobim was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger, and singer. Considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian music, Jobim internationalized bossa nova and, with the help of important American artists, merged it with jazz in the 1960s to create a new sound, with popular success. As a result, he is sometimes known as the "father of bossa nova".

Jobim was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists internationally since the early 1960s.

Antônio Carlos Jobim was born in the middle-class district of Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro. His father, Jorge de Oliveira Jobim (São Gabriel, Rio Grande do Sul; 1889–1935), was a writer, diplomat, professor, and journalist. He came from a prominent family, being the great-nephew of José Martins da Cruz Jobim, senator, privy councillor, and physician of Emperor Dom Pedro II. His mother, Nilza Brasileiro de Almeida (c. 1910–1989), was of partly Indigenous descent from Northeastern Brazil. Brasileiro de Almeida was only 16 years old when she gave birth to Antônio Carlos Jobim at their home in Tijuca on Rua Conde de Bonfim. While studying medicine in Europe, José Martins added Jobim to his last name, paying homage to the village where his family came from in Portugal, the parish of Santa Cruz de Jovim, Porto.

In the 1940s, Jobim started to play piano in bars and nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro, and in the first years of the 1950s, he worked as an arranger in the Continental Studio, where he had his first composition recorded, in April 1953, when the Brazilian singer Mauricy Moura recorded Jobim's composition Incerteza, with lyrics by Newton Mendonça.

In 1958 the Brazilian singer and guitarist João Gilberto recorded his first album with two of Jobim's most famous songs, "Desafinado" and "Chega de Saudade". This album inaugurated the Bossa Nova movement in Brazil. The sophisticated harmonies of his songs caught the attention of jazz musicians in the United States, principally after his first performance at Carnegie Hall, in 1962.

A key event in making Jobim's music known in the English-speaking world was his collaboration with the American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz, the Brazilian singer João Gilberto, and Gilberto's wife at the time, Astrud Gilberto, which resulted in two albums, Getz/Gilberto (1963) and Getz/Gilberto Vol. 2 (1964). The release of Getz/Gilberto created a bossa nova craze in the United States and subsequently internationally. Getz had previously recorded Jazz Samba with Charlie Byrd (1962), and Jazz Samba Encore! with Luiz Bonfá (1964). Jobim wrote many of the songs on Getz/Gilberto, which became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, and turned Astrud Gilberto, who sang on "Garota de Ipanema" (The Girl from Ipanema) and "Corcovado" (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), into an international sensation. At the Grammy Awards of 1965 Getz/Gilberto won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group and the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. "The Girl from Ipanema" won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Among his later hits is "Águas de Março" (Waters of March 1972), for which he wrote both the Portuguese and English lyrics, and which was then translated into French by Georges Moustaki (Les Eaux de Mars, 1973). (Wikipedia)

About the performer...

Steven began studying the guitar at age nine and has attended some of the finest music schools in the world including the Berklee College of Music (Boston), and the Mozarteum (Salzburg, Austria). He holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Washington University (1980) and a Master of Music degree from the University of Arizona (1982).

Over the past 40 years, Steven has performed hundreds of concerts throughout the United States, Central & South America, and Europe. His debut recordings ‘Espressivo’ and ‘Steven Saulls Plays Works by Ponce, Torroba & Bach’ have received wide acclaim both nationally and internationally. In addition to solo concerts, he has performed over 200 chamber works including guitar concerti (with orchestra) by Vivaldi, Ponce, and Rodrigo.

About the recording...

Recorded at The Steven Saulls Guitar Studio, Sahuarita, Arizona 2023/Guitar handcrafted by Martin Blackwell.

Copyright© 2023 Steven Saulls, Sahuarita, Arizona

For additional information please contact Steven Saulls at [email protected]