Verve Mondays continues in May with four records that showcase the remarkable breadth of the Verve and Impulse! catalogs — from the cool bossa nova of Astrud Gilberto through Yusef Lateef‘s boundary-dissolving world jazz to the definitive bossa collaboration between Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfá. This month also includes a special midweek Coltrane 100 event featuring the newly reissued Africa/Brass.
Every Monday night at Kissa Kissa, the featured reissue becomes the evening’s centerpiece — played in full on vinyl through our Technics SL-1200GR turntables and Harbeth speakers, with a full evening of complementary programming curated from our library of more than 5,000+ LPs. The Verve 70 cocktail — our Monday-night-only signature drink — is available all evening.
This Month on the Turntable
Four records. Four Mondays. Plus a special Tuesday Coltrane event. Each one played on vinyl the way it was meant to be heard.
Marcos Valle was the Renaissance man of Brazilian pop — a singer, songwriter, and producer who straddled the country’s music world from the early days of bossa nova through the fusion-soaked sound of the 1980s. Though his reputation in America never quite matched contemporaries like Caetano Veloso or Gilberto Gil, he remains one of the most important figures in Brazilian music history.
Samba ’68 was Valle’s only album for Verve — recorded in English with brilliant arrangements by Eumir Deodato to capitalize on America’s bossa nova craze. The vocal harmonies with his wife Anamaria are gorgeous throughout, and “Crickets Sing for Anamaria” remains a stone-cold classic. One of the grooviest records in the entire Verve catalog.
Astrud Gilberto’s voice changed everything. In March 1963, she walked into a recording session as the wife of João Gilberto and walked out as the voice of “The Girl from Ipanema” — a song that became the second most-recorded pop song of the twentieth century. Producer Creed Taylor needed English vocals for Stan Getz‘s bossa nova session, and Astrud’s whispery, unaffected delivery turned a Brazilian standard into a worldwide phenomenon.
The Shadow of Your Smile followed in 1965 — her second solo album for Verve, arranged by Claus Ogerman, Don Sebesky, and João Donato. The title track and “Fly Me to the Moon” are irresistible, but the deeper album cuts reveal an artist who could make any lyric feel intimate and effortless. Astrud passed away in 2023, but this Acoustic Sounds reissue gives her voice the fidelity it deserves.
Yusef Lateef played world music before world music had a name. Born William Huddleston in Chattanooga in 1920, he picked up the tenor saxophone as a young man in Detroit and spent the next seven decades dissolving the boundaries between jazz and every other musical tradition he encountered. His instruments tell the story: beyond tenor and flute, Lateef played oboe, bamboo flute, shehnai, shofar, and koto — any sound that served the music.
Jazz ‘Round The World was Lateef’s debut for Impulse! Records in 1964, and it captures everything that made him extraordinary — the tenor sax anchoring one track, the oboe floating through the next, a bamboo flute surfacing somewhere you didn’t expect it. This Verve Record Club edition is limited to 2,500 numbered copies, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI from the original analog tapes. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.
Stan Getz’s silken tenor saxophone became the sound of bossa nova in America. His collaborations with Brazilian musicians for Verve — beginning with Jazz Samba in 1962 and culminating in the Grammy-winning Getz/Gilberto — created a cultural moment that introduced millions of Americans to Brazilian music. Luiz Bonfá, the guitarist and composer behind the Black Orpheus soundtrack, was one of the founding architects of the bossa nova movement and one of the finest acoustic guitarists of his generation.
Jazz Samba Encore! pairs these two masters in a setting more intimate and conversational than the larger ensemble sessions. Bonfá’s guitar and Getz’s tenor circle each other with the kind of unhurried grace that only comes when two musicians are genuinely listening. The Acoustic Sounds edition was mastered from the original analog tapes and pressed to 180-gram vinyl at RTI. This is bossa nova at its most pure.
Tuesday, May 19 — Africa/Brass
A special midweek listening event celebrating John Coltrane’s centennial year with the newly reissued Africa/Brass and selections from across the Coltrane Impulse! catalog.
On May 23, 1961, John Coltrane walked into Van Gelder Studio for the first time as a leader on Impulse! Records. He brought twenty-one musicians with him. The result was Africa/Brass — a record unlike anything in jazz before or since, with orchestrations by Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner weaving French horns, euphonium, and a thicket of reeds around Coltrane’s quartet.
The album’s sixteen-minute title track is one of the most ambitious recordings in Coltrane’s catalog — a modal exploration that pointed directly toward the spiritual searching of A Love Supreme three years later. Booker Little and Freddie Hubbard are among the brass players, Elvin Jones drives the rhythm, and Reggie Workman holds the bass chair.
We own 79 Coltrane records — more than any other artist in our library. Tuesday, May 19 is a deep dive into the Impulse! years, building toward a full play of the new Africa/Brass reissue.
What Is Verve Mondays?
Verve Mondays is a year-long listening series at Kissa Kissa celebrating the 70th anniversary of Verve Records and the centennial of John Coltrane. Every Monday, we feature a new or forthcoming vinyl reissue from the Verve, Impulse!, and associated catalogs — played in full on our sound system as the evening’s centerpiece.
Many of these records are pre-release pressings — you hear them here before they’re available anywhere else. The series runs all year, with new selections announced monthly. No cover charge, no reservations required (but always encouraged). The Verve 70 cocktail is our Monday-night signature.
Follow along on Instagram for weekly listening previews and behind-the-scenes looks at the collection.
Verve Mondays Continue Every Monday in May
Plus a special Tuesday, May 19 Coltrane 100 event.
667 Franklin Avenue · Crown Heights, Brooklyn
No cover. Reservations encouraged.
