Joe Harnell His Piano And Orchestra - Fly Me To The Moon And The Bossa Nova Pops FLAC album

The label on this album by Joe Harnell states ‘first published in 1962′, only four years on from the birth of the bossa, so one might infer that this is one of the earlier examples of the styles’ appropriation, recorded for Kapp Records in New York. There is a discernably higher energy level compared to the more languid form of easy listening that bossa would become as the decade wore on, though there is a tendency to swamp the arrangements with big string sections. I prefer the more stripped-back examples – just piano and rhythm section – with their smokey, intimate atmospheres. Blimey, it’s like proper jazz!