• TROPICSLLIFESTYLE

    BOOKS

    Image
    THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS
    A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness
    AUTHOR:Sy Montgomery

    SUMMARY:In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism.
    • From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma.
    • Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. 
    • With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures,” Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. 
    • By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds. 

    REVIEW    : "If you are looking for a scientific book, this is not for you, but it’s a beautiful narrative about the amazing emotional connections humans can make with intelligent sea life. It's excellent for young adults to read and [a great book] to read to children."

    l Atria Books (2015), 272 pp., ISBN-13: 978-1451697728
    aList price: $16.99. Sells for less at Amazon.
    Image
    Image
    THE BEACHCOMBER'S COMPANION 
    An Illustrated Guide to Collecting and Identifying Beach Treasures
    AUTHOR: Anna Marlis Burgard

    SUMMARY: Breezy, inviting, and delightful—just like a day at the beach—The Beachcomber's Companion is a charming illustrated guide to collecting and identifying shells and other coastal treasures.
    • Each of the entries includes fascinating descriptions, fun tidbits, and detailed artwork that makes it easy for readers to identify their own beach discoveries.
    • A handy resource section offers tips on how to prepare before setting out on a shoreline adventure: from the beachcomber's commandments to must-have items for every beachcombing toolkit and advice on preserving shells.
    • Awash with information and gorgeous watercolor illustrations, this is an essential companion for all who love the ocean's shore.

    REVIEW: "This book is a feast for the eyes, as well as incredibly informative. I bought one for each of my kids....It is the perfect gift for anyone who has strolled on a beach and picked up a seashell."has beautiful pictures, and great ideas for anyone doing renovations or just small changes to certain rooms in their home. So many fabulous shades of blue in so many different settings. It's worth spending a few hours enjoying every page!"

    MChronicle Books/illustrated edition (2018), 128 pp., ISBN-13: 978-1452161167 
    FList price: $16.95. Sells for less on Amazon.
    Image
    COASTAL BLUES
    Mrs. Howard's Guide to Decorating With the Colors of the Sea and Sky
    AUTHOR: Phoebe Howard

    SUMMARY: From design expert (and interior design readers’ favorite) Phoebe Howard comes a new book focused on decorating with beautiful blue color schemes.
    • Coastal Blues is a glorious decor book filled with inspiring images of beach houses, seacoast getaways, vacation cottages, and luxurious seaside manors. It is also a hardworking how-to-get-the-look book that offers solid interior design and styling advice.
    • Featuring brand-new, never-before-published projects, every page reflects the ease and casual elegance of shoreline living.
    • With chapters such as Sea Glass (brilliant blue color schemes), Indigo Bay (true blue schemes), and Ocean Mist (pale blue schemes), Phoebe shows design lovers how to make the coastal style modern, fresh, and very much their own.
    .
    REVIEW: "It has beautiful pictures, and great ideas for anyone doing renovations or just small changes to certain rooms in their home. So many fabulous shades of blue in so many different settings. It's worth spending a few hours enjoying every page!"

    MHarry N. Abrams (2018), 272 pp., ISBN13: 9781419724800
    FList price: $35. Sells for less on Amazon.
    Image
    RICHOCHET
    Riding a Wave of Hope With the 
    Dog Who Inspired Millions
    AUTHOR: Judy Fridono

    SUMMARY: Ricochet, a golden retriever, is the only dog in the world who surfs with wounded warriors, people with disabilities, and children with special needs as an assistive aid and SURFice dog. This tears-to-triumph story takes readers behind the media sensation.

    Ricochet surpassed every other dog in Puppy Prodigy training class. But due to her love for chasing birds, she was released from training; leaving a frustrated owner and a dog without a direction. Yet that flunking out of school led to a new purpose. 

    Ricochet began to help others, including those with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, and physical disabilities. She raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities, and offers people hope, comfort, healing ~ and a reason to keep fighting.

    REVIEW: "I was just amazed how Ricochet knew what to do when she first met someone who had been traumatized or had gone through something horrific. Her gentle nature and intuitiveness were things I have never witnessed or read about before. She is truly inspiring."

    M HCI (2014), 288 pp., ISBN13 978-0757317729
    F Sells on Amazon in various formats and prices.
    Image
    RATTAN
    A World of Elegance and Charm
    AUTHOR: Lulu Lytle

    SUMMARY:     An ode to rattan (the sustainable tropical palm), this book celebrates the beloved material’s versatility, natural beauty, and craftsmanship.
    • Explore rattan’s rich history through a series of photographs featuring iconic spaces like Parisian gardens, California beach houses, Art Deco interiors.
    • It’s a gorgeous look at the laid-back exoticism and relaxed glamor that makes this material so timeless. Also showcases tastemakers who embrace rattan.
    • Lytle is the designer/owner of Soane Britain, an interior brand that designs British-made furniture, upholstery, lighting, fabrics and wallpapers.design expert (and interior design readers’ favorite) Phoebe Howard comes a new book focused on decorating with beautiful blue color schemes.

    REVIEWS:     "Informative on the history of rattan, and differences between wicker and rattan. Pictures are beautiful." D f"Well done. A person could look over the whole book, many times, and see something new each time."  Df"It has beautiful pictures, and great ideas for anyone doing renovations or just small changes to certain rooms in their home. So many fabulous shades of blue in so many different settings. It's worth spending a few hours enjoying every page!"

    MRizzoli (2020), 224 pp., ISBN-13: 978-0847868902
    FList price: $65. Sells for less on Amazon.
    Image
    Image
    Image
    GROWING TASTY TROPICAL PLANTS IN ANY HOME, ANYWHERE
    AUTHOR:Laurelynn G. Martin

    SUMMARY:Enjoy fresh java brewed from your own coffee beans or juice from the orange tree growing in a sunny corner of your living room.
    • Learn how to successfully plant, grow, and harvest 47 varieties of tropical fruiting plants in any climate!
    • This straightforward, easy-to-use guide brings papaya, passionfruit, pepper, pineapples, and more out of the tropics and into your home.
    • With plenty of gorgeous foliage, entrancing fragrances, and luscious fruits, local food has never been more exotic.

    REVIEW:    "This is a great book on growing fruit indoors. If you're looking for a review of edible plants you could grow indoors, this is a nice place to start. You definitely get enough info to assess the pros and cons of each plant and to know if it's a good fit for your indoor environment."

    A Storey Publishing (2010), 160 pp., ISBN-13: 978-1603425773
    BList price: $17.32. Sells for less on Amazon.
    Image
    THE DOG'S GUIDE TO SURFING
    Hanging Ten With Man's Best Friend
    AUTHOR: A. K. Krump

    SUMMARY: Humans aren't the only "surf dogs." Surfers' four-legged friends love water too, and many even like catching waves.
    • These amphibious canines are special creatures: top surfers believe dogs who learn to surf develop a unique attitude, knowing they have something that sets them apart from other dogs.
    • For anyone who loves the antics of "man's best friend," The Dog's Guide to Surfing is indispensable, collecting stories, lessons, and advice in one richly illustrated book.
    • For surf-lovers, there's also plenty of info on surf gear and riding a wave, both with and without a pooch.
    • From mounting a massive seven-footer to simply playing in the water, this book shows how to really be a s"urf dog" no matter the breed or size.

    REVIEW: "Teach your dog how to rip with personal stories, lessons, advice, movies, gear and surfwear, everything a surfdog needs."  --SURFING Magazine K E "You're going to howl from cover to cover and be talking about this book...for months."  --The Maui Weekly

    MTCB Cafe Publishing (2018), 128 pp., ISBN-13: 978-0967489872 
    FList price: $14.95. Sells for way less on Amazon.

    TROPICSLLIFESTYLE

    All rights reserved; Tropics Lifestyle magazine / Palm Life Publishing. No part of this article or publication may be shared, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published; including this condition being imposed on the purchaser of the content.

  • TROPICSLLIFESTYLE

    MUSIC

    Image

    BOSSA NOVA

    The History Behind Brazil’s Quiet Revolution

    IN THE EARLY 1960'S, BRAZIL INITIATED A QUIET MUSICAL REVOLUTION BY EXPORTING THE SILKY SOUND OF BOSSA NOVA TO THE REST OF THE WORLD 
    By Charles Waring 


    1964 WAS A SIGNIFICANT YEAR     for pop music.

    It not only witnessed the meteoric rise of the long-haired, guitar-toting beat groups, led by such pace-setting bands as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (who started a trend of songwriting self-sufficiency), but also marked the arrival on the world stage of a new kind of jazz-infused music that blended sinuous, caressing melodies with subtle syncopated rhythms.

    The sound originated in Brazil and was called “bossa nova,” a description that translated into English as “new trend.” 
    THE Girl From Ipanema

    The song that lit the touch-paper for the bossa nova explosion in the United States, and the rest of the world was called “The Girl From Ipanema,” sung by Astrud Gilberto in a wispy but beguiling girlish voice. It reached No. 5 in the U.S. pop singles chart in the summer of 1964.

    The song transformed Astrud into an international star, even though it wasn’t solely hers. “The Girl From Ipanema” was a collaboration between her then-husband, singer and guitarist João Gilberto, with jazz tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, and it featured on the 1963 Verve album Getz/Gilberto.

    An amateur singer, Astrud had been drafted in during a moment of last-minute spontaneity to sing opposite her husband, but her presence proved utterly spellbinding.

    m"AFTER THE PHENOMENAL SUCCESS OF "THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA," BOSSA NOVA FEVER GRIPPED THE U.S."f 

    The much-shorter single version of the song edited out João’s vocals almost completely, spotlighting, instead, his young wife, who would go on to make records under her own name from 1965 onwards.

    VIDEO: Watch 24-year-old Astrud Gilberto sing “The Girl From Ipanema,” the iconic song that sold nearly five million copies and made the world fall in love with Brazil's bossa nova music style. 
    After the phenomenal success of “The Girl From Ipanema,” bossa nova fever gripped the U.S.

    Many musicians – particularly jazz ones – were attracted by the music’s delicate melodies, lush harmonies and slinky syncopation, and began recording authentic Brazilian material as well as reconfiguring standard songs using bossa nova-influenced rhythms.

    The Birth Of Bossa Nova

    Bossa nova’s story really began in 1958, in Brazil. One of its key architects was Antônio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994), a classically trained Rio De Janeiro-born pianist who also played the guitar, sang and wrote songs.

    He had risen to fame in Brazil as the composer of music for a 1956 play, Musicas De Orfeu Da Conceição (which inspired the influential 1959 movie Black Orpheus), and as that decade progressed, he helped to fuse elements of jazz with indigenous Brazilian music to create what became known as the     bossa nova sound.

    Among the first singers to record Jobim’s bossa nova material were Elizete Cardoso (who recorded an entire album of his songs), Sylvia Telles, and – most significant of all – João Gilberto.

    Between 1959 and 1961, Jobim worked on Gilberto’s first three albums in Brazil, helping to establish the quiet-voiced singer/guitarist as a new star in his native country. 
    Image
    Cover art (with vinyl record) of Jazz Samba, a now-classic bossa nova album by saxaphonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd. Recorded and released in 1962, it helped sow the seeds of North America's love affair with Brazillian music.
    But Gilberto’s fame soon spread outside of Brazil.

    By 1961, American musicians visiting the country – among them flutist Herbie Mann and guitarist Charlie Byrd – had played alongside Brazilian musicians and enjoyed a firsthand experience of the burgeoning bossa nova movement.

    Back in Washington, D.C., saxophonist Stan Getz saw Byrd’s band live, heard them play some bossa nova tunes he liked, and requested they record an album together.

    Bossa Nova Comes To America

    Aided by producer Creed Taylor, Getz and Byrd were recorded in All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. and the results were released as Jazz Samba on Verve Records in April 1962.

    Its success (70 weeks on U.S. pop album charts, peaking at No. 1) was aided by its high-flying single: a blissful version of Jobim’s “Desafinado” which made No. 15 on Billboard's Hot 100 in November 1962 and later won a Grammy.

    D"THE AUDITORIUM WAS PACKED WITH ALMOST 3,000 ATTENDEES CURIOUS TO HEAR THE EXCITING NEW MUSIC UP CLOSE"x

    Jazz Samba not only helped to sow the seeds of North America’s love affair with Brazilian music, it also gave new impetus to Stan Getz’s career. Indeed, the saxophonist would continue to record bossa nova songs on a regular basis right up until his death, in June 1991.

    America’s awareness of bossa nova music was heightened by a concert held at Carnegie Hall at around the same time as Jazz Samba’s release, on November 21, 1962.

    The auditorium was packed to the rafters with almost 3,000 attendees, including many jazz musicians curious to hear the exciting new music up close. They witnessed bossa nova’s prime progenitors – Jobim, Gilberto, Luis Bonfá, Sérgio Mendes, Carlos Lyra and others – performing with Getz, Byrd, and pianist and soundtrack composer Lalo Schifrin.
    VIDEO: Watch jazz musicians Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd play their hit song “Desafinado,” which reached No. 15 on Billboard's Hot 100 in November 1962 and later won a Grammy. The high-flying single appeared on the album Jazz Samba, released by Verve Records in April 1962. 
    The Bossa Nova Explosion

    The concert’s critical and commercial success inspired a raft of jazz musicians who were excited by the improvisational possibilities that bossa nova presented.

    Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Wes Montgomery, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Smith and Oscar Peterson are just some of the big names that embraced the seductive sound of Brazilian music in the 1960s.

    Even some of the most famous pop groups of that era were inspired by the hip sound that had first emanated from Rio’s beach cafes.

    B"FAMOUS POP GROUPS OF THAT ERA WERE INSPIRED BY THE HIP SOUND THAT HAD FIRST EMANATED FROM RIO'S BEACH CAFES"E

    Bands such as The Beatles (“And I Love Her”), The Kinks (“No Return”), and The Beach Boys (“Busy Doin’ Nothin’”) brought a bossa nova flavor to some of their songs, while a plethora of big-name singers covered Brazilian material.

    Two vocal giants, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, devoted whole albums to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s songbook.

    The Importance of Antonio Carlos Jobim

    Both Sinatra and Fitzgerald recognized that Jobim was a musical giant whose stature as a songwriter rivaled the North American greats that they so admired, like George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

    Indeed, Jobim was responsible for writing so many of bossa nova’s key songs, including “The Girl From Ipanema,” “Desafinado,” “One Note Samba,” “Photograph,” “Insensatez” (AKA “How Insensitive”), “Corcovado” and “Meditation.”

    BBOSSA NOVA EPITOMIZES COOLNESS, TRANSCEND TIME, AND TRANSPORTS THE LISTENER TO ANOTHER PLACEp

    The composer also enjoyed a long and distinguished recording career, and his success helped other Brazilian musicians find an international audience with their music; among them was pianist Sérgio Mendes (who scored substantial U.S. hits with his group Brasil '66 in the late 1960s), organist Walter Wanderley, guitarist Luis Bonfá, singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil, and chanteuse Elis Regina, who recorded a duets album with Jobim in 1974.
    Album Elis and Tom (Phillips, 1974) features duets by Brazilian musical giant Antônio Carlos Jobim, a key architect of the bossa nova sound, and Elis Regina, an iconic Brazilian singer. Some music critics call it the greatest vocal duet album of all time.
    The Enduring Appeal Of Bossa Nova

    Summing up the appeal of bossa nova music, Sérgio Mendes told this writer in 2019: “I think it’s very sensual, it’s very romantic, and you can also dance to it. Those three components make it very, very beautiful. And it has great melodies – melodies that you can remember.”

    Indeed, it does. With its hushed intimacy, poetic lyrics, alluring melodies, and mesmerizing rhythms, bossa nova music continues to cast a spell 60 years after it first came into the world.

    It possesses an ineffable quality that just seems to epitomize coolness, transcend time, and transport the listener to another place.     T
    NOTE: This story was originally published April 16, 2021, by uDiscover Music. Permission has been granted to republish it for our readers.
    About the Author: Charles Waring, Music Journalist and Jazz Critic

    When his attempts to become a New Romantic pop god were thwarted, Charles Waring gave up playing music and began writing about it instead. He got his first break at Blues & Soul magazine in the 1990s but has spent the last decade and a half writing mainly about jazz for Mojo and Record Collector. Waring also has curated many compilations, and to date has worked on over 300 sleevenote projects. When not writing, he can be found cruising seedy backstreets looking for record shops to satisfy his vinyl fetish.

    About the Publisher:uDiscover Music (uDiscoverMusic.com)

    uDiscoverMusic.com takes an in-depth look at some of the most influential music in the world – and the artists that created it. Full of news, reviews, features, videos, curated playlists and quizzes, it’s an essential home for fans of all types of music. Among its contributors, the site has a team of respected authors and journalists who are passionate about what they do, with decades’ worth of experience in print, online, radio and TV journalism.

    uDiscoverMusic.com is operated by Universal Music Group, the largest record label in the world and home to the greatest artists in history. 
    Editor's Note: Bossa nova continues to enchant new generations. In 2021, world-famous singer Billie Eilish added her own take on the sound in "Billie Bossa Nova," a song from her new album Happier Than Ever. While clearly not a "traditional" bossa nova, it's certainly a respectable tribute to the original music style.

    TROPICSLLIFESTYLE

    All rights reserved; Tropics Lifestyle magazine / Palm Life Publishing. No part of this article or publication may be shared, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published; including this condition being imposed on the purchaser of the content.