My Unofficial Freegal series returns to shed light on musical treasures found in Freegal, a service that offers weekly free mp3 downloads to patrons of participating public libraries around the world. (See previous post in the series for more details.)

The recent passing of Astrud Gilberto probably sent some users to Freegal in search of “The Girl from Ipanema,” one of the most iconic songs of the 20th century. Bad news: you won’t find the timeless 1964 original from the Getz/Gilberto LP on Freegal—you’ll only find a 1977 disco remake which is disappointing enough as to feel almost sacrilegious. It’s from a mediocre 1977 album titled The Girl from Ipanema, which contains two decent songs (the duet with Chet Baker isn’t bad) surrounded by a lot of subpar material burdened by disco-era production.

It gets worse, and this is a prime example of how the Freegal database can be so frustrating. That 1977 album doesn’t merely appear once in the catalog—it’s there SIX more times, repackaged with deceptive titles (Best Of…, The Definitive…, The Brilliant…, The Platinum Collection, etc.), different covers, and sometimes with the songs resequenced. (NB: this isn’t Freegal’s doing—blame the record label’s distribution and licensing deals.)

There’s a bright spot, though. Of the three actual studio albums Freegal offers, one of them ranks among her best: GILBERTO WITH TURRENTINE (1971, CTI Records). A seamless blend of jazz, tropicalia and pop, the material is great, Gilberto’s rarely sounded better, and the credits are a jazz A-list: Stanley Turrentine, Ron Carter, Airto Moreira, Toots Thielemans, Hubert Laws, arrangements by Eumir Deodato, with Creed Taylor and Rudy Van Gelder behind the boards. (Interestingly, Denny Seiwell’s on drums in what might have been one of his final jazz sessions before joining Wings.) This one belongs in your collection.

If you’ve got Freegal download credits burning a hole in your pocket, the other studio album they’ve got, NOW (1972), is a fine mid-tier entry in her oeuvre and, surprisingly, one on which she flexes her songwriting muscles a bit.

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