Antonio Carlos Jobim for Classical Guitar

from Mel Bay Publications
review by Richard Turner

This month's featured review is Antonio Carlos Jobim for Classical Guitar (MB99725). This is a collection of 10 solo guitar pieces arranged by eminent Brazilian guitarist Paulo Bellinati. Mentioned in the foreword to the book is the fact that this edition is an outgrowth of the Paulo Bellinati PIays Antonio Carlos Jobim DVD project that Mr. Bellinati made for Mel Bay Publications in 2001.

The 10 pieces are at the high-intermediate to advanced level of difficulty and range in length from 2 to 6 pages. These are beautiful arrangements and will serve as a perfect companion edition to Mr. Bellinati's DVD performance of Jobim. The pieces are carefully fingered for the left hand and are presented in staff notation only. Included in this book is a foreword by Mr. Bellinati discussing the scope of and the inspiration for the project, an excellent 2 page biography of Jobim, a biography of Mr. Bellinati, and one page of notes explaining many of the special effects used in the pieces, as well as a few unconventional left hand techniques. This is very helpful. One of the unusual left hand techniques described is the crossing barre. This is executed by using the barre finger at two different frets simultaneously. His example demonstrates the first string A and the fifth string D# both played with the barre. In other words, it is a very crooked barre! Another unusual technique is using a left hand slur to sound one note and then using the right hand tapping effect to sound the next note-very cool sounding and I hear that the ladies love it.

Antonio Carlos Jobim was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1927 and passed away in New York City in 1994. As a child Jobim played guitar and then changed to the piano. His undergraduate studies were in architecture but he soon abandoned architecture in favor of music. His career as a composer, song writer, and performer is legendary. Jobim's works have been recorded by many of the greats of the pop and jazz world such as Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, and Frank Sinatra. The pieces in this volume are from a variety of sources and were not originally written as solo guitar works. Mr. Bellinati has painstakingly transcribed these pieces from recordings and then made the guitar arrangements. The results of this effort clearly show that this guitar edition of Antonio Carlos Jobim was truly a labor of love for Paulo Bellinati.

Estrada Branca is the first piece to in the book. It is a slow 88 measure piece in D major and is in low D tuning. The 12 bar introduction mixes natural harmonics with chords and then proceeds to a sequential passage which utilizes a beautiful campanella effect. The main body of the piece keeps the melody in the top voice. The accompaniment is fairly thin and not too difficult to play. The melody, harmony, and arranging are all absolutely gorgeous, and Mr. Bellinati's fingering is masterful. Another fairly slow and dreamy piece is Por Toda a Minha Vida. It is only 34 measures long and is in B minor. The difficulties here might be some of the rhythms-quarter note triplets and some thirty-second notes. Sometimes hearing the piece (similar to listening to blues for rhythmic inflection) can really help things. Therefore, having the DVD of Mr. Bellinati playing these pieces could solve many mysteries. Another unconventional left hand technique (for pure classical players anyway) is barring with the second finger of the left hand. It appears in this piece and others and is really helpful in some situations. Por Toda a Minha Vida or Estrada Branca would both function well to open a set of Jobim pieces.

Some of the bossa novas and choros are more technically intimidating even though they are very logically laid out on the fingerboard. Antigua is a bossa moving at 70 beats a minute. In E major and 97 measures long, this piece will require precise rhythm and good barre chord technique to work well. The choro titled Garoto looks like one of the most difficult pieces of the collection. Tempo indications are quarter note at 72 and "preciso". This piece presents lots of challenges. It uses some fairly thick chord structures in the context of rhythmic intricacies which won't be easy to master. At 110 measures it is one of the longer pieces in the book. A long improvisando section starts at measure 60 and contains several scale passages in thirty-second notes which will also present difficulties. These are definitely at a quite advanced level of technical difficulty.

One of the most interesting and creative arrangements is the 150 measure long piece titled A Felicidade. In B major the piece is arranged to be played with the 5th string tuned to down to F# and the 6th string tuned down to B. This gives a wonderful low sonority but I wouldn't recommend putting this piece in the middle of your Jobim set! It might be a bit difficult to recover from this tuning for the following piece! These odd scordatura tunings also present reading problems since we just aren't used to the 5th and 6th strings being tuned like this. Your persistence will be rewarded however. This is really beautiful and in several sections of the piece the melody is presented over the open 6th string as a pedal point, creating a really magical effect. Definitely a new and good sonority! A Felicidade also requires a full technical arsenal-major league chord, barre, and scale technique. Plus it requires a sense of humor to cope with the unusual tuning.

I've mentioned just a few of the pieces which demonstrate the scope of this book. The music of Jobim is magnificent and Paulo Bellinati is a fine scholar, performer, arranger, and editor. This edition is for players with at least several years experience and a desire to experience Jobim on the guitar at its best.

Richard Turner

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About the Author

After demonstrating an early interest in music with the clarinet and folk guitar, Richard Turner studied classical guitar with George Sakellariou and José Rey de la Torre and received Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Music from San José State University.

Since 1994 Mr. Turner has taught in the large classical guitar program at California State University at Fullerton. Several years ago he revived his early interest in American roots music and developed a course in the history of American folk music which he also teaches at Cal State Fullerton. His instrumental interests are diverse, including classical guitar, slide guitar, banjo, and steel-string fingerpicking and flatpicking styles.