The Heavens Are Singing

·     R & B/Soul singer Tina Turner.

·     Opera singer Grace Bumbry, 

·     Folk singer Gordon Lightfoot. 

·     Calypso singer Harry Belafonte.

·     Jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. 

·     Jazz saxophonist  Wayne Shorter. 

·     Songwriter Burt Bacharach. 

·     Rock musician David Crosby. 

And as of yesterday, Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto joined the heavenly choir. 

 

Not even halfway through the year, that’s a long list of musical icons who brought so much memorable music to the American landscape that now have passed on. The fact that virtually everyone above lived into their 80’s and 90’s helps soften the blows of their passing, but still we will miss them. Thanks to recording technology, the cliché of “they will live on through the music they left us” is  gospel truth—but only if we take the time to keep listening.

 

So that’s what I did to honor Astrud, whose gentle voice is indelibly imprinted in her Girl From Ipanema recording, a song that sold over five-million-records, joined the 1964 Hit Parade alongside The Beatles I Want to Hold Your Hand, Louis Armstrong’s Hello Dolly, The Beach Boys I Get Around, Barbara Streisand’s People, Mary Wells My Guy and more (1964 was an amazing eclectic musical year!) and is believed to be the second most-recorded song after the Beatles Yesterday.  She was only 24 years old when she made that recording, was paid $120 and never got another penny in spite of its popularity. Apparently, it was almost an afterthought, as her husband Joao Gilberto was about to record the song with Stan Getz and then casually suggested that his wife sing a verse in English. 

 

Thank you, Astrud, for your sonic legacy forever imprinted on our minds and I wish we folks down here on earth could hear what music you and Tina and Wayne and David and Ahmad etc. are putting together. I hope you get to sing again with Joao (who died in 2019) and consider letting Stan (Getz) in the band even though he falsely claimed credit for “discovering” you. May the heavens ring!

 

PS A partial list of other heavenly bands formed in the two years before this.

 

2022:Loretta Lynn, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ramsey Lewis. Pharoah Sanders. Joey De Francesco.

 

2021:Mike Nesmith, Stephen Sondheim, Paddy Moloney, Charlie Watts, Don Everly, Chick Corea, Jimmie Rodgers