Astrud Gilberto - Beach Samba (1967), 4/10

Astrud Gilberto’s Beach Samba begins with “Stay”, a pleasant samba track that features interesting musicality and Gilberto’s signature smooth vocals. Beyond this opening track the album loses its focus and becomes a standard bossa nova album at best and genuinely confusing or terrible at its worst. “Parade”, for instance, has no real place and beyond sounding like an entirely misplaced novelty; it is a poor effort and a grating song. When Gilberto sticks with the traditionally successful aspects of bossa nova music it is bearable although nothing particularly special. Her graceful vocal delivery is the allure of the record, yet she has better performances and contributions elsewhere that exhibit her talents with more grace. The middle of the record is very standard as far as the genre is concerned and plays it safe, although this is a strength considering when Gilberto ventures beyond these boundaries the results are typically quite poor. “Oba Oba”, “Canoeiro”, and “My Foolish Heart” exemplify Astrud in her comfort zone while “I Had the Craziest Dream”, “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice”, or “Parade” show us why she is best within the confines of the already established tenants of bossa nova. Obviously, there is little of musical substance or grander interest in Beach Samba, making it just another album thrown into the considerably dense mix of bossa nova from the sixties.