Astrud Gilberto

Astrud Evangelina Weinert (29 March 1940 – 5 June 2023), known professionally as Astrud Gilberto (Portuguese pronunciation: [asˈtɾudʒi ʒiwˈbɛʁtu]), was a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer and songwriter. She gained international attention in the 1960s following her recording 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 Brazilian state of Bahia. She was raised in Rio de Janeiro. Her father was a language professor, and she became fluent in several languages. She married João Gilberto in 1959 and had a son, João Marcelo Gilberto, who later joined her band. Astrud and João divorced in the mid-1960s. She had another son from a second marriage, Gregory Lasorsa, who also played with his mother. João Gilberto had an affair with Brazilian singer Miucha (Heloísa Maria Buarque de Hollanda), which caused the couple to separate. Later she had to a relationship with her husband's musical collaborator, American jazz saxophone player Stan Getz while on a tortuous tour with Getz, where he was abusive, and underpaid the singer at the height of her fame until her lawyer, Allan Arrow, could get her discharged from the tour contract. She emigrated to the United States in 1963 and resided in the U.S. from that time on.

She sang on two tracks on the 1963 album Getz/Gilberto featuring João Gilberto, Stan Getz, and Antônio Carlos Jobim. While it was her first professional recording, Astrud "wasn't a complete novice. She grew up steeped in music (her mother Evangelina Neves Lobo Weinert played multiple instruments) and sang regularly with her husband in Brazil, including in a concert at the Faculdade de Arquitetura, part of one of Rio de Janeiro's top universities." Her "beguiling, whispery voice" and steadfast approach to singing played a significant role in popularizing "The Girl from Ipanema", earning a Grammy for Song of the Year and a nomination for Best Vocal Performance by a female.

The 1964 edited single of "The Girl from Ipanema" 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. For the recording, it is reported Astrud only ever received the standard session fee, US$120. However, according to Gene Lees in Singers and the Song II, Getz asked producer Creed Taylor to ensure she was paid nothing. 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 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 a 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.

Gilberto received the Latin Jazz USA Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1992 and was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 2002. In 1996, she contributed to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Rio produced by the Red Hot Organization, performing the song "Desafinado" (Portuguese for "slightly out of tune", or "off-key") along with George Michael at his invitation. Although she did not officially retire, Gilberto announced in 2002 that she was taking "indefinite time off" from public performances.

Her original recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" was edited as a duet using a recording of the same song by Frank Sinatra for the soundtrack of Down with Love (2003). Her recording "Who Can I Turn To?" was sampled by The Black Eyed Peas in the song "Like That" from the 2005 album Monkey Business. Her vocals on "Berimbau" were sampled by Cut Chemist in his song "The Garden". Her recording of "Once I Loved" was featured in the 2007 film Juno. The "Astrud" track on Basia Trzetrzelewska's 1987 album, Time and Tide, is a tribute to Gilberto.

Gilberto was an advocate of animal rights.

Gilberto died from undisclosed causes on 5 June 2023. She died at her home in Philadelphia, her granddaughter Sofia Gilberto said on social media.

• The Astrud Gilberto Album (Verve, 1965)
• The Shadow of Your Smile (Verve, 1965)
• A Certain Smile, a Certain Sadness with Walter Wanderley (Verve, 1966)
• Look to the Rainbow (Verve, 1966)
• Beach Samba (Verve, 1967)
• Gilberto Golden Japanese Album (Verve, 1967)
• Windy (Verve, 1968)
• September 17, 1969 (Verve, 1969)
• Astrud Gilberto
• I Haven't Got Anything Better to Do (Verve, 1969)
• Gilberto with Turrentine (CTI, 1971)
• Now (Perception, 1972)
• That Girl from Ipanema (Image, 1977)
• Astrud Gilberto plus the James Last Orchestra (Polydor, 1986)
• So & So: Mukai Meets Gilberto (Denon, 1990)
• Super Stars
• Live in New York (MVP, 1999)
• Jungle (Magya, 2002)

• Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, Castro, Ruy. 2000. (Published in English in 2003.)
• De Stefano, Gildo, Il popolo del samba, La vicenda e i protagonisti della storia della musica popolare brasiliana, Preface by Chico Buarque de Hollanda, Introduction by Gianni Minà, RAI-ERI, Rome, 2005, ISBN 8839713484
• De Stefano, Gildo, Saudade Bossa Nova: musiche, contaminazioni e ritmi del Brasile, Preface by Chico Buarque, Introduction by Gianni Minà, Logisma Editore, Firenze, 2017, ISBN 978-88-97530-88-6