It’s the literal translation of Anos Dourados by the great Brazilian composer, father of the bossa nova, Antônio Carlos Jobim (also known as “Tom”), whose music was widely adopted by jazz musicians throughout the world. To me, it’s also those years when the Great American Songbook came into being and flourished. It still does in the world of jazz and regularly at my piano.
In my piece on Bill Mays I went into some detail about what distinguishes an amateur’s playing from a professional’s. Someone wrote asking for clarification about my statement “I long ago lost the ability to sight read other than the melody line and the chords and improvise the rest.” Doesn’t that mean you play by ear, I was asked? I wish I did, having lost that ability long ago as well. It is a contradiction I suppose, improvising harmony and the bass from the chords, playing the melody from the treble clef which I read.
With apologies to any professional musician reading this the best way I can explain it is by revealing a bit of serendipity as Covid-19 took control of our lives. A friend sent me a link to a recording of Anos Dourados I had never heard it before and was spellbound by the melody. I was compelled to find the sheet music which I managed to do – with chords, no harmonic arrangement and no clef bass. So I sat down with it at the piano and after a few passes at it, I casually recorded it on my cell phone to mail drop to my friend. I recently I had to upgrade phones and found that forgotten recording and was surprised by that first take at the song.
Unfortunately Google and Microsoft do not play well together and there was no way to transfer this to my Windows based computer, so I improvised a transfer having to record the recording and since it is not up to par technically, just saved it in my personal cloud. Imperfections and all I embed it here and include a photograph of the sheet music. Perhaps this explains better what I was trying to say.
Here’s the melody line and the chords.
Here is a link to the recording of the iPhone recording! Although amateurish, having the ability of sit down with a piece of music and just play it has been and continues to be a source of joy. If I first hear it I can capture some of the nuances, but even if I’ve never heard the music, give me the melody line and the chords, and I can play it. Anything up to five flats (D flat major) or three sharps (A major). That in itself is an interesting anomaly. I struggle with 4 sharps but not 4 flats, probably because it is less likely to find songs from the Great American songbook written in 4 or more sharps.
The lyrics remind me of the romantic, lost love ones that might have been penned by Paul Simon, and while the title, “Golden Years” refers to the years when the singer was happy with his now lost love, ironically these are my “golden years” in another sense of the words.
