Quincy Jones - Big Band Bossa Nova [Spain Import]

Quincy Jones caught the bossa nova wave at its crest on Big Band Bossa Nova, and this limited 180-gram Spanish import adds a bonus track to the original 1962 programme.

Brazil's cool new rhythm was sweeping American jazz that year, and Jones, then calling the shots as an arranger and producer at Mercury, gave it a bold, brassy, big-band makeover. Where other records went for hushed intimacy, he went for colour, wit and punch, mixing Jobim favourites with sharp originals and arranging the lot with a showman's flair.

Soul Bossa Nova is the headline act, a gleefully strutting tune powered by Roland Kirk's flute that later found a second life as the theme to the Austin Powers films. Chega de Saudade (No More Blues) shows how gracefully Jones could make a full orchestra whisper, while Lalo Schifrin, who sits at the piano, contributes the slinky Lalo Bossa Nova. The extra cut, A Taste of Honey, slots in neatly at the end.

More than sixty years on, it still sounds like the coolest party in town, all swaying percussion, grinning horns and a sly sense of humour, and a reminder of just how early Quincy Jones was thinking in widescreen, years before his studio wizardry made him a household name.