João Gilberto and Stan Getz's Getz/Gilberto

Most die—hard Brazilian music fans would argue that Getz/Gilberto, the iconic 1964 album featuring "The Girl from Ipanema," is not the best bossa nova record. Yet we've all heard "The Girl from Ipanema" as background music in a thousand anodyne settings, from cocktail parties to telephone hold music. So how did Getz/Gilberto become the Brazilian album known around the world, crossing generational and demographic divides?

Bryan McCann traces the history and making of Getz/Gilberto as a music...