G2E Short Takes: Baden Powell

Baden Powell was a composer, singer, and guitarist inextricably linked to the Bossa Nova craze of the 1960’s. If you’re at all familiar with Bossa Nova from the early 60’s, you’ll recognize what a radical departure Powell’s music was from the highly sophisticated stuff that was catching on in the U.S. around this time. We listen to “How Insensitive” from the beautiful 1967 collaboration between Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim, the patron saint of Bossa Nova. The poet, essayist, and playwright Vinicius de Moraes wrote the lyrics for “How Insensitive”, and he collaborated with Jobim on “The Girl from Ipanema”, “No More Blues”, and the play that eventually became the movie called “Black Orpheus”. The Jobim/Moraes partnership wasn’t an exclusive one. Moraes started working with Baden Powell in the early 60’s, but Powell and Moraes focused their attention on a synthesis between Brazilian music and traditional African forms.