Roberto Menescal e seu Conjunto: Surfboard

I can't vouch for the video, but you can hear the record here. I'm talking about Tom Jobim's "Surfboard" as recorded in 1966 by Roberto Menescal.

I previously knew this song in a recording by Herbie Mann and Stereolab on the compilation Red Hot + Rio. Good set, good track, but...well, the lesson here is that if you're playing bossa nova, you really want your rhythm section to be Brazilian. A previous generation learned that with Jazz Samba, a good record that nevertheless paled next to some of Getz's later cracks at bossa nova, in large part because Charlie Byrd's rhythm section just didn't have the light touch bossa nova requires. Neither does Stereolab, I guess - whatever else they may have going for them.

But Menescal's Conjunto does.