The Definitive Antonio Carlos Jobim Collection

By Antonio Carlos Jobim

There are problems with lesser-known songs in this book. Some examples: The first chord in the fourth full measure of So Tinha De Ser Com Você is just plain wrong; the right hand part for the piano goes down to five (!) ledger lines below the treble clef staff (why...

?); the bass line at “Você que bonita� is a fourth low and that makes the D.S. al Coda back to that measure really awkward. The arranger of Luciana keeps the “om-pah� left hand chords in the intro within the space of one octave, which is a particularly dull sound and something you’ll never find in the simplest Chopin. On page 110 of Mojave the first measure of both the third and fourth systems is mislabeled. The chord is a D9, not an Am6, and the bass note should be a D, not an E. I think this book will only be definitive (and trustworthy) when the mistakes in the unfamiliar songs are cleaned up and someone with a good ear and a feel for bossa nova piano checks all the arrangements.

The Hal Leonard songbook "Antonio Carlos Jobim Anthology" has been updated at last, it's now twice as big and packed with lesser-known gems. Many of the added songs have been previously available in now out-of-print songbooks. I have many Jobim books but it's the first...

time I can enjoy playing "Ligia", "Luciana", "Gabriela", "Tide" or "So Tinha De Ser Com Você". Technically, the book is ideally bound as the pages lie perfectly flat. Must-own.