Rio Bossa

Even if you weren’t all Rio’d-out after the wall-to-wall Olympics coverage, you’d probably need another bossa nova compilation about as much as you need another doping headline. Still, alongside the usual Jobim/Gilberto suspects that even the most disinterested 100m sprinter could probably hum in their sleep, this triple-CD set distinguishes itself to some degree by shining a light on the contributions of North American jazz musicians as well as lesser-known artists like Maysa, the so-called ‘Janis Joplin of bossa nova.’ The exquisitely poised guitar-sax dynamic of Bud Shank and Laurindo Almeida's ‘Atabaque’ is arguably the highlight of the first CD, along with Luiz Bonfá's evergreen ‘Lamento No Morro’ and its ominous, strum-and-repeat fadeout. Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd's bossa hook-ups, meanwhile, are still devastatingly elegant four-and-a-half decades after the fact, not least ‘Samba Triste’ – it is difficult to believe they ended in a lawsuit. Less stormy was Ike Quebec and Kenny Burrell's partnership, of which ‘Loie’ is a gorgeous example. With its syncopated handclaps, Baden Powell's ‘Lição de Baião’ stretches the genre's boundaries, while the jazz police may well have a double take when they see that even tenor saxophone colossus Coleman Hawkins tried his hand at bossa.