Astrud Gilberto Day

Astrud Gilberto (Brazilian Portuguese: [aʃˈtɾud ʒiwˈbɛʁtu]; born March 29, 1940) is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She became popular in the 1960s after her performance of the song “The Girl from Ipanema“.

Astrud Gilberto was born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, the daughter of a Brazilian mother and a German father, in the state of Bahia, Brazil. She was raised in Rio de Janeiro. She married João Gilberto in 1959 and had a son, Marcelo Gilberto. She has another son from a second marriage, Gregory Lasorsa . Later she began a relationship with her husband’s musical collaborator, American jazz saxophone player Stan Getz.. She emigrated to the United States in 1963, residing in the U.S. from that time. Astrud and João divorced in the mid-1960s.

She sang on two tracks on the influential 1963 album Getz/Gilberto featuring João Gilberto, Stan Getz, and Antônio Carlos Jobim, despite having never sung professionally before this recording. The 1964 single version of “The Girl from Ipanema“, taken from the 1963 album, omitted the Portuguese lyrics sung by João Gilberto, and established Astrud Gilberto as a Bossa Nova singer. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. In 1964, Gilberto appeared in the films Get Yourself a College Girl and The Hanged Man. Her first solo album was The Astrud Gilberto Album (1965). Upon moving to the United States, she went on tour with Getz. Beginning as a singer of bossa nova and American jazz standards, Gilberto started to record her own compositions in the 1970s. She has recorded songs in Portuguese, English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Japanese.

In 1982, Gilberto’s son Marcelo joined her group, touring with her for more than a decade as bassist. In addition, he collaborated as co-producer of the albums Live in New York (1996) and Temperance (1997). Her son Gregory Lasorsa played guitar on the Temperance album on the song “Beautiful You”, which features singer Michael Franks.

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