Helena Jobim - Antonio Carlos Jobim - an illuminated man

Hal Leonard Books

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1996 Helena Jobim

English translation 2011 Drio Borim Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 1996 as Antonio Carlos Jobim: Um Homem Illuminado by Editora Nova Fronteira

English-language edition published in 2011 by Hal Leonard Books

Book design by F. L. Bergesen

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN: 9781458429421

www.halleonardbooks.com

For my brother,

That faithful love,

In life and in death

Every time a tree is cut down here on Earth, I believe it will grow again somewhere elsein some other world. So, when I die, it is to this place that I want to go, where forests live in peace.

Antonio Carlos Jobim

Contents

A NYONE WHO LOVES MUSIC , particularly great songs, probably remembers the moment he first listened to The Girl from Ipanema or Desafinado. For me, it was something like the summer of 1962. As a teenager, and fledgling musician, I was in orbit around the music of Motown, the Beatles, and Chicago radio jazz DJ Sid McCoy.

Then I heard the composer Jobim, and I found a part of myself. The mysteries of the long, shaped melodies and the complex harmonic structures completely resonated in me. Pretty much everything I ever composed, or enjoyed listening to ever since, had some root in that moment of discovery.

Years passed and I made my mark as a musician, and for perhaps emotional and spiritual reasons, in the early 1990s, I began listening again to all of Jobims body of work. Only now was I much more equipped to recognize qualities that I could not grasp when I was a kid.

I also embarked on casual explorations of all Brazilian music from the 1950s forward. This included reading as much as I could find, in English, about Jobims development, his history, his life. There was puzzlingly little about the man himself, his personal challenges, demons, triumphs. What was he thinking about? Obviously, well never know.

There came my discovery, on the Internet, of Antonio Carlos Jobim: Um Homem Iluminado, by Helena Jobim (available in Portuguese, and perhaps, Japanese, but not English). What precious nuggets of insight lay frustratingly out of my ignorant reach?

In my reading of Internet articles, I had come across the learned and entertaining writing of Professor Drio Borim, who shared a love of music, and particularly Jobim, with me. I took a chance and wrote to him, and thus began a labor of love to bring the charming memoir to a huge population of English-reading music lovers. Mr. Borim took time from his busy activities as professor, writer, and radio personality, to take on the translation. I am forever grateful to him.

Robert Lamm

W HILE LISTENING TO ANTHOLOGICAL RENDITIONS of bossa nova classics by Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Joo Gilberto, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, and Sarah Vaughan, among others, I read Helena Jobims elegant Portuguese prose about the genesis of true gems of twentieth-century music. After every other minute, I was further enthused to re-create, in English, such fascinating story lines that explained the writing of Dindi, Desafinado, or The Girl from Ipanema. Moments of such sensorial and intellectual bliss had been extremely rare in my life as writer, literary critic, translator, and radio producer.

It was not always an easy spell, though. Antonio Carlos Jobim was someone else who knew all too well the perils and powers of translation. He always sought the most competent professionals in the business, such as lyricists Ray Gilbert, Norman Gimbel, and Gene Lees, to make his songs shine in meaning and elegance in the English language. He, himself, worked diligently on several of the new versions proposed for his lyrics. He understood the lights and shadows, especially the cultural and linguistic aspects, of literary translation, which demands cuts and additions, welcomes similarities and differences, but cannot refrain from gains and losses. As a result, many stanzas of guas de maro and Waters of March, for example, are not the same. Although they differ considerably even in length, the two poems display much more in common than the literal images they convey. Most significantly, neither is superior to the other.

Translating this book has been as daunting as any other translation task, except for the fact that Helena Jobim is an award-winning writer and her brother is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. So, I definitely gave my heart and soul to this mission, but not without the support from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and several individuals. My thanks go to John Cerullo, for trusting this project, plus Iris Bass, Jessica Burr, Mike Edison, and all other Hal Leonard staff who have helped make this volume what it is visually and otherwise. For various acts of kindness and expertise I am indebted to Helena Jobim herself, her husband (Manoel Malaguti, in memoriam), Marco Feitosa, Thereza Otero Hermanny, Ana Lontra Jobim, and Cristina Rocha, in Brazil; and Ann Fifield, Maureen Hall, Kassandra Hartford, Rick Hogan, Janet Homer, Christopher Larkosh, and Charles Perrone, here in the United States. Most of all, I am grateful for the generosity and inspiration from pianist and singer-songwriter Robert Lamm, one of the founding members of the legendary group Chicago.

Drio Borim Jr.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and WUMD

T O SPEAK OF ONE OR TWO HUNDRED YEARS into the future is imprudent in this world where everything happens very fast and changes are rampant. Within a few years, everything is unpredictable. I think, however, that the future will command a more spiritual view of things, which perhaps will increase interest in the work of an Antonio Carlos Jobim. Quite often when I talk to friends, they ask me what I am doing. Im used to replying to them, Im writing for posterity. Im working to deserve that Jobims bronze statue at a park somewhere.

Creation is an act of love, something that communicates with all humanity. An artist ought not to make anything that would contribute to the worlds downfall. I think I have a sense of responsibility for those I live with.

Life has an occult meaning, quite certainly. I was born in a skeptical environment, in an agnostic way. Before nature, [though], I feel that all negativity is naive, that God would not have created us for nothing.

People today are a lot ruder and more aggressive than they were a few years ago. On a deserted street, in a peaceful part of town where children play, a car may pass by too fast for the drivers sheer pleasure of speeding or for any other reason indifferent to everything and everybody. Wellif at least they were in a hurry to get somewhere. Learning is difficult. We have to reeducate ourselves so that we dont abuse others and we dont let them abuse us. Despite it all, life can be agreeable for those who like what they do. Over there on that piano are unedited songs that need to be worked on. If everything goes well, if the plane doesnt crash, we will record and we will write music for the youth, for those who want to and can make it better in the future. This is what I mean to say.

Antonio Carlos Jobim

Rio de Janeiro, 1982

I HANDED IN THE ORIGINALS of Antonio Carlos Jobim: Um homem iluminado