Volume 120: Elis & Tom
The Voice Of Energy Vol. 120
Hello, all. Yes, this newsletter did undergo a couple of week hiatus as I dealt with a) the holidays and b) getting incredibly sick right after the holidays. For anyone that cares, my apologies.
This time around, just a single review for you, but it is of a film that has quickly entered my list of the best of 2023. (Does anyone want to see my list in some form or other on here? Reply and let me know.)
Elis & Tom: Só Tinha de Ser com Você (2022, dir. Roberto de Oliveira & Jom Tob Azulay)
In early 1974, two of Brazil’s best artists, singer Elis Regina and composer extraordinaire Antônio Carlos Jobim, decamped for Los Angeles to make an album together. The project was apparently a gift to the vocalist, who had long wanted to record a complete LP of Jobim’s compositions, to honor her 10th anniversary on the Philips label. Released later that same year, the plainly titled Elis & Tom was a creative peak for everyone involved. Regina found a new gear for her supple voice to slip into, playing with rhythm and timbre in a manner that she hadn’t allowed herself before. And though many of the songs — all written by Jobim — were many years old by that point, they are given a new shine through the arrangements written by César Camargo Mariano.
While the album itself has been justly celebrated, one detail of its creation has been little known until recently. At the time of the sessions, 16mm cameras, under the direction of Roberto de Oliveira, were filming the proceedings, both for a behind the scenes glimpse at this monumental meeting of two creative dynamos and to capture some promotional clips to share on Brazilian TV. That rarely seen footage, remastered in 4K in 2018, forms the bulk of Elis & Tom: Só Tinha de Ser com Você, a spectacular new documentary co-directed by de Oliveira and Jom Tob Azulay.
The pace of the documentary is as breezy and unhurried as the music performed throughout. Azulay and editor João Wainer do a remarkable job plotting a winding but direct path through the storied careers of Regina and Jobim and their one-time collaboration, using both contemporary interviews with the musicians and crew who helped make Elis & Tom, and a copious amount of footage of the two artists performing on television.
As adored as it is now, bossa nova wasn’t necessarily appreciated in Brazil as Regina and Jobim were on the come up. Both found early success outside of their home country with Jobim collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Stan Getz, and various jazz artists in America. He soon released a series of ambitious albums — 1967’s Wave, and Stone Flower and Tide, both from 1970 — that fluidly blended post-bop jazz and bossa nova with the help of players like Ron Carter and Hubert Laws.
As his star began to rise in Brazil, he crossed paths with Regina, who by the early ’70s was eager to move past the chirpy records of her youth into the mature, tropicalismó-inspired work heard on 1970’s Ela (which features a wonderfully tripped out cover of the Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers”) and 1971’s Elis. Though mildly skeptical of her abilities — and perhaps concerned about her singing the Brazilian national anthem at a ceremony celebrating the country’s supposed independence (she later said she did it under duress) — Jobim agreed to work with Regina, with both opting to work in L.A. where producer Aloísio de Oliveira was now living.
What happened next was, by all accounts, something of a love story with Jobim and Regina falling for each other’s talents. During rehearsals and as the two listen to playbacks of the sessions, they are seen mooning over one another, holding hands, or warmly embracing. Whether there was an actual affair isn’t made clear, but it was obvious that Jobim more fully realized Regina’s talents, and she continued to fall for his poetic lyrics and dynamic compositions. Naturally, not everything went smoothly, as Jobim apparently bristled at the idea of Mariano handling the arrangements and complained loudly about the use of electric instruments. He came around on both accounts. One piece of footage shows the team listening to a playback of “Soneto De Separação” during which Jobim, moved by a Gainsbourg-esque string swell, leans over Mariano to shout “Go, Cesar!”
Elis & Tom sadly was the only collaboration between the two artists as, following its release, they continued sailing off on their own trajectories. In Regina’s case, her journey came to an abrupt end in 1982 when she died from a combination of drugs and alcohol. According to many in the film, her death should be ruled a suicide as they insist that she didn’t want to grow old in public. I still find that very hard to believe.
Jobim kept on recording and writing up until his own passing in 1994, including collaborations with artists like Edu Lobo and Miúcha and an appearance on Sinatra’s Duets II. But in multiple interviews over the years, the subject of Elis & Tom kept returning and, every time, Jobim would visibly light up at the warm memories that that album stirred up. It’s a feeling mirrored in every moment of this tremendous film.
Elis & Tom opens at Cinema Village in New York City tonight at 7:30 pm ET before hitting streaming services on February 6, 2024.
That's what I have for you, dear subscribers. More next week! Questions? Queries? Hit me up.
Artwork for this edition is from Sylvan and Harsh North, an exhibition opening tomorrow at Galeria Municipal do Porto in Portugal.
This newsletter was written on the unceded land where once stood the traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River creating communities and summer encampments to harvest and use the plentiful natural resources of the area.