This is one of the most beautiful songs we’ve ever heard. While you may be familiar with the Bebel Gilberto version, the song’s composer, Chico Buarque, recorded it several times (in both Portuguese and Italian). The harmony includes a lot of dominant seventh chords voiced with the seventh in the bass; the chords create a suspended, dreamlike setting for the melody.
In the late 1960s, Buarque recorded a multi-volume anthology of original music. This version of Samba e Amor, which features a jazzy trumpet, comes from the fourth record. The song is written from the perspective of a sleepy person who observes the buzz of the city after spending the night in a haze of samba and love.
