Flute, Samba, and a Hit Dressed for Bossa
A jazz flutist leans into the bossa nova boom and gives Jobim's samba a chance to fly.
When Do the Bossa Nova with Herbie Mann arrived in 1962, the bossa nova craze was already spreading through American record stores, and Atlantic moved quickly to capitalize on it. The album was a straightforward commercial play, but it found an audience. Its most lasting moment is "One Note Samba," the one track where Antônio Carlos Jobim sings his own composition, and that track did more to carry the record than anything else on it.
Musically, this is Herbie Mann doing what he did best in that period: a light, melodic flute sitting over Brazilian rhythms and an easy swing. The arrangements stay uncluttered, and Jobim's piano is central to the sound. It is not a deep, searching record, and it doesn't pretend to be. It is pleasant, rhythmic, and built around tunes that are easy to hum.
For listeners coming to Mann, this is not where most would start. His later Atlantic and Embryo work shows him pushing much further. This album is better understood as an accessible entry point to bossa nova for jazz fans, and as a record that reflects how eagerly the American jazz scene absorbed the form in the early 1960s.
Who's playing
Antônio Carlos Jobimpiano
Herbie Mannflute
Where next?
More by Herbie Mann
All 36 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
